Yes...

Val Smith, Oxford City Councillor for Blackbird Leys and executive member for regeneration

I am really excited about the project.

There has already been regeneration in Barton and in Rose Hill.

The old estates that are beginning to look jaded were built for a different era and there are all kinds of issues that come up, like parking.

We do need to do some work on the estate and there are some glaring problems, like the tower blocks.

People like living in them and they are nice blocks, but they are draughty, old and the fronts are pretty grim.

We also want to look at the way we can make the area around the top shops better and how we can give it a real ‘centre of the estate’ feeling.

In Barton there was a big community square and we are really keen on that.

I am the first up saying we have seen all this before and been consulted before and I know how everyone feels, but I think now it has got a new emphasis.

Rather than a charity coming up with an idea and we have to think of the finances, the Prince’s Foundation is doing the whole thing for us.

I feel much more confident than I ever have before because they are such a professional organisation that have done this in so many parts of the country.

I really feel we can make a difference this time.

No...

Brian Lester, vice chairman of Blackbird Leys Parish Council

We have had too many of these surveys.

We have had people coming onto the estate, saying what they are going to do, and it’s all gone belly up.

We had computer hubs installed and that was fine, then the money went dry and that left people struggling to survive.

If they set these things up, there should be the money to back them up.

Building houses is not regeneration but we do want these areas regenerated, particularly the top shops.

It seems unless they build houses they can’t redevelop, because they need private money from sales of houses to do all the alterations.

I am verging between optimism and pessimism. I would like to see it succeed but it needs to be the redevelopment of the whole area.

The tower blocks need to be consistently upgraded and where you have got places like the shops, where they are old, something needs to be done there.

We have got what I would call a mish-mash at the shops up here. We haven’t got the facilities.

They talk about new bungalows and garages in Kestrel Crescent, but these would be for elderly people and there is no public transport.

I believe they have got to start with the shop areas first – sort that out and make it nice and that would be a start.

But we have heard these things before.