Introduction

Since the late 1960s, successive British governments have sought to tackle the ‘urban problem’ through a range of different policies. From the Community Development Projects to the Urban Development Corporations (UDCs), and most recently, Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) in neighbourhood renewal, the sheer number of different initiatives is reflective of the fact that no administration to date has been able to solve the problem of inequality within Britain's cities (Atkinson and Moon, 1994; Hambleton and Thomas, 1995; Wilks-Heeg, 1996). Criticisms of past initiatives have been well documented, the most recurring theme being the failure of regeneration processes to engage with those whom regeneration was intended to benefit (Colenutt and Cutten, 1994; Geddes, 1997).

New Labour claims to have learnt from the past mistakes of previous initiatives, with an emphasis on “the area aspects of social exclusion” and partnershipbased approaches to regeneration (SEU, 2001, p 12). Core to its plan for tackling deprivation is the need to involve local communities and previously excluded groups in regeneration processes (DETR, 1998a; SEU, 2001). As the Social Exclusion Unit's (SEU) National Strategy Action Plan for neighbourhood renewal states:

Yet such commitments need to be cautiously received. Terms such as ‘community’ and ‘social exclusion’ may hide a multitude of groups and individuals with very different needs and access to the networks of regeneration. They can make invisible those people who are at the very margins of society, and it is with one such group – disabled people – that this chapter is concerned.

Disabled people have been excluded from society in a multitude of ways, be it socially, economically, or politically (Oliver, 1990; Barnes, 1991). Historically, in terms of urban policy, they have not been targeted as a ‘disadvantaged group’ in the way that ethnic minorities have, for example (Atkinson and Moon, 1994; Brownill et al, 1996). Yet this neglects the fact that disabled people face barriers in accessing employment and the built environment, partly as a result of societal discrimination, and have some of the lowest levels of income of all groups in the country (Dalley, 1991; Imrie, 1996a; Imrie and Hall, 2001).