The Urban Regeneration Industry in Leeds: Measuring Sustainable Urban Regeneration Performance

The aim of this project is to investigate the level of sustainability being achieved by urban regeneration projects in the UK with specific focus on the urban regeneration in the East Bank area of Leeds. The study investigates the definitions of sustainability being applied to British urban policy and finds projects are incorporating it with varying degrees of success. It reviews current research into methods of measuring sustainability and sustainable urban regeneration performance and finds indicator based approaches are the most widely used and most effective. An indicator based methodology developed by Lesley Hemphill, Jim Berry and Stanley McGreal of the Centre for Research on Property and Planning at the University of Ulster is applied to the East Bank regeneration area of Leeds to measure sustainable urban regeneration performance. The performance of the East Bank is subsequently compared to the case studies used by Hemphill, Berry and McGreal. The Hemphill framework was found to effectively assess the sustainability performance of regeneration projects, though it had a number of weaknesses. The framework is discussed as a useful policy tool and a basis for developing a national indicator framework for urban regeneration projects.