The nine pathfinder areas were established in April 2002 and received substantial funding between 2003/04 and 2010/11. Three further partnerships were subsequently added receiving funding from 2006. They all operated as sub regional partnerships targeted at weak housing market areas rather than overall local authority or small area levels.
While the scale of both the causes and symptoms of low demand housing varies according to local context, all areas had dysfunctional housing markets that present significant regeneration challenges.
While progress has been made, the pathfinder areas together with a number of other areas in the North and Midlands continue to face ongoing issues of:
- comparatively low house prices
- high amounts of vacant and long term vacant housing
- high levels of turnover
- difficult to let social housing
- population loss and out migration
- underperforming local economies
- skewed tenure and types of housing stock
- multiple deprivation
- low incomes.
Overall, pathfinder areas encompass parts of 25 local authority areas, while a further 13 make up the three additional partnerships. The nine pathfinders were:
- Bridging Newcastle Gateshead (Newcastle and Gateshead)
- Gateway (Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire)
- Transform South Yorkshire (Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster)
- Urban Living (Birmingham and Sandwell)
- Renew North Staffordshire (Stoke on Trent, Newcastle under Lyme and Staffordshire Moorlands)
- Manchester Salford (Manchester and Salford)
- NewHeartlands (Liverpool, Sefton and Wirral)
- Oldham and Rochdale Partners in Action (Oldham and Rochdale)
- Elevate East Lancashire (Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale)
The three partnerships added in 2006 were:
- Tees Valley Living (Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Darlington, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton on Tees) which gained pathfinder status in 2008
- West Yorkshire (Bradford, Leeds, Wakefield, Kirklees and Calderdale) which was integrated with Transform South Yorkshire in 2008
- West Cumbria (Allerdale, Barrow in Furness and Copeland)
Location of the pathfinder areas
