A Manchester academic with a strong interest in Pathfinder has started a blog in the lead-up to the publication of his new book on the subject.
Prof Chris Allen, of Manchester Met, has already ruffled some academic feathers with Housing Market Renewal and Social Class – several months before it’s even due to come out.
Chris gave evidence at the first public inquiry over the Edge Lane road-widening scheme in Kensington, Liverpool, over which indomitable grandmother Elizabeth Pascoe is currently taking on the authorities for a second time.The blog, and subsequent book, promises to be interesting for those who follow such matters.
He believes the working class people who are fighting the bulldozers have been “disenfranchised” in a number of ways – including a lack of true input into schemes and having to represent themselves at public inquiries, against large well-briefed legal teams.
Hardly surprising then that the outcome has been a foregone conclusion.

“The key players in housing market renewal…have access to ‘expertise’ to make their case and have been adept at using the media to denounce their opponents and get their ‘message’ across,” he writes.
“In fact the key players in housing market renewal are so adept at ‘information management’ that any criticism of the programme is usually immediately denounced in the media…” [Something I can personally attest to]

“Since [my book] has already been denounced as ‘vitriolic’ and a ‘diatribe’ (albeit in private) by people that have not even read the book, I expect the formal routine denouncement of my book to immediately follow its publication.
“But it will not go without response.”

Nothing like a good academic spat to keep people interested.