Summary

Derelict buildings and empty spaces threaten economic competitiveness, territorial cohesion and performance. SEEDS addressed the urgent need for revised policies and robust EU steer by promoting innovative land-use strategies and modern governance.

The project developed skills and opportunities for those furthest from labour markets, transforming growth prospects. It tackled changing land-use patterns demanded by recent economic challenges and delivered evidence-based spatial planning tools and instruments.

Lead Beneficiary

South Yorkshire Forest Partnership (Sheffield City Council)
Sara Parratt-Halbert
sara.parratt-halbert@syforest.co.uk
Tel: +44 1142571199

Project Homepage

Beneficiaries per Country

Background and Aim

Aim

SEEDS’ main aim was to promote the reuse of vacant sites by working transnationally to implement innovative spatial planning policy instruments, and by stimulating regeneration and sustainability across the North Sea Region to create thriving locations in which to live, work and invest.

Background

Across the North Sea Region vacant and derelict sites pose an increasingly urgent threat to territorial cohesion and economic competitiveness. This deters investment in declining areas, threatening parity and undermining economic equity between North Sea Regions. Reasons may include market failure, inflexible planning policies, shrinking populations or vested interests of speculative investors who sit on land-banks of empty sites until land values rise.

Policy responses remain piecemeal and uncoordinated, and no structure exists to enable innovative solutions to be shared transnationally. The result is unattractive, high-profile and wasted sites that deter investment and undermine North Sea Regions as places in which to live, work and invest. 

SEEDS enjoyed a high success rate results-wise.  Employment and training opportunities were offered by two pilots, Sheffield Showcase and Rotherham Renaissance, targeting young people and getting them ready for the jobs market.

A new organisation, Renew:Sheffield, based on the Australia-based Renew:Newcastle model, is now marrying SMEs and entrepreneurs with the owners of vacant buildings, showing a clear connect between re-use and the local economy.

Land-based temporary improvements have also been shown to have a similar effect, with local developers and land owners beginning to engage.  

The Decree Concerning Land and Buildings in Flanders was effectively deployed for the first time and is expected to be rolled out more widely.  

Citizens were directly involved in all of the pilots, which were driven from the bottom up.  They continue to be involved at local level, particularly where abandoned land has been brought back into use.  

There is now a transnational Spatial Planning Forum comprising 22 organisations spanning ten countries, not all of them European, carrying forward a Charter for Re-use which contains the recommendations for efficacious re-use of abandoned land and buildings.  These are based on the experiences of 20 demonstration sites, and the results of an extensive SWOT analysis of existing policy instruments across the NSR, making them fully transferrable.  

The SEEDS website www.seeds-project.com and ISSUU www.issuu.com both act as vehicles for the all the reports written during SEEDS’ lifetime, ensuring the experiences of all those involved will continue to support and inspire temporary use/re-use of the North Sea Region’s forgotten spaces.