The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott shared ideas on regenerating deprived areas during their visit to the West Ham and Plaistow New Deal for Communities, funded and administered by the Government Office for London (GOL).
The visit focused on two newly built community resource centres, the Hub and Grassroots where President Lula met members of the local community and was given a West Ham United football shirt with his name on the back. The Grassroots is built on the original 'Hammers' ground in Memorial Park.
The two centres bring together services including a training cafe with free internet access, a pharmacy, employment advice, children's services, local health facilities, nurseries and a base for local police teams. West Ham and Plaistow NDC is part of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's neighbourhood renewal initiative and is receiving more than £54 million funding over a 10-year period.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said:
"New Deal for Communities is a key programme in the Government's strategy to tackle deprivation in some of the poorest areas in the country - it gives struggling neighbourhoods the resources to tackle their problems in an intensive and co-ordinated way. I also know that we in Britain have a lot to learn from Brazil - we can learn from cities like Curitiba which has become an international example of sustainable development and community empowerment.”
The Hub in Canning Town is the first of three proposed community resource centres built by West Ham and Plaistow NDC, which aim to create landmark buildings that will contribute to the regeneration of the area.
The NDC programme, funded and administered by GOL, is a ten-year £2 billion regeneration programme, with partnerships in 39 of the most deprived neighbourhoods around the country. Each partnership typically has about £50 million available to it to tackle multiple deprivations over a ten-year period. West Ham and Plaistow NDC have overall funding of £54,565,000 for the ten-year programme. The NDC area has a population of nearly 10,000 people.
For more information on NDCs in the East London region please contact Amanda Reguera on 020 7217 3033.
