Karen Hoy reports on the progress being made by a multi-million pound regeneration scheme to improve the lot of neglected estates in East Brighton.

RESIDENTS of East Brighton were promised a £47.2 million investment in their communities to help rebuild them after years of neglect.

The legacy was an absence of pride about living in Whitehawk or Moulsecoomb.

New Deal for Communities (NDC) began the slow process of putting the pieces of Whitehawk and Moulsecoomb back together almost three years ago.

On Friday, at the Wellsbourne Centre in Whitehawk Road, Whitehawk, Brighton, residents, community leaders and volunteers dedicated to changing the face of the blighted estates met to launch plans for the next three years.

They also announced the new logo and name for the scheme and to look back on achievements so far.

No longer will the project be called New Deal for Communities. It will have a more local feel and be called East Brighton For You or eb4u.

Eric Harmer, chairman of the East Brighton Community Partnership Board, said: "One of the reasons for the new logo is so people realise how many things New Deal for Communities is behind."

There have been concerns that New Deal did not appear to be doing much in East Brighton but the logo will appear on schemes backed by eb4u.

The community minibus, another New Deal for Communities scheme, already has the eb4u logo.

The scheme has developed projects in health, employment, education, crime, housing, the environment and community development.

So far more than 200 cases of domestic violence, harassment and racial harassment have been dealt with. Six neighbourhood wardens have made 283 visits to harassment victims and more than 500 visits to new residents.

Total crime in 2001 fell by 13 per cent. There was a 22.4 per cent reduction in car crime and domestic burglaries fell from 234 in 1999/2000 to 160 in 2001/02.

More than 118 small grants have been made to community groups so residents can devise their own initiatives.

A healthy community manager has been appointed and the National Lottery has paid £1 million for a healthy living centre. A nurse practitioner and a new GP have been appointed and there is funding for a part-time GP.

The list of patients at the doctors' practice has increased by 20 per cent and an older people's co-ordinator has been appointed. Eight play schemes ran during Easter last year and 27 in the summer of that year.

There are plans to turn Preston Barracks in Brighton into an employment training centre. Employment training schemes already in operation have led to 60 residents achieving qualifications.

Mr Harmer said small but significant improvements in attainment were made last year at GCSE level and for 11-year-olds. The East Brighton College of Media Arts in Whitehawk came out of special measures and every pupil gained at least one GCSE.

A dozen placemaking teams have been established. These are groups of residents who identify aspects of the areas where they live which need improving, including security cameras, planting, improving playgrounds and clearing rubbish.

Mr Harmer said: "NDC is doing a lot more than people realise. One of the most important things now is the three-year strategy."

The team has set goals. One is a youth strategy in which the team identified youngsters want to be listened to and have better access to leisure facilities.

There are plans to enhance information and technology in East Brighton, to improve computer learning opportunities, internet access and home computer availability.

East Brighton lacks arts venues and does not participate in any of the city's major arts events. The programme will aim to get the community involved in these events and develop its own arts-based initiatives.

Research is being carried out into participation in sporting activity in East Brighton. Women, people from ethnic groups and disabled people have been identified as under-participating in sports. There will be a review of land, buildings and open space in the next three years. More work will be carried out to look at housing and traffic.

In the next three years, £6 million will be spent to increase the number of people feeling involved in their community to 60 per cent by 2005. Leaders want to increase the number of people using community facilities in East Brighton to 50 per cent by 2005.

Up to 60 community-led projects will receive funding and an older persons community development worker will be employed.

The strategy has left no stone unturned. There are strategies to increase school attendance, to improve the take-up of breast cancer screening from 57 per cent to 67 per cent and to cut the numbers of children on the child protection register from 70 per cent to 65 per cent by 2005.

Anthony Sheldon, the headteacher at Brighton College, told the launch: "This is forging the way ahead not just for East Brighton but for the rest of the city."

Residents have welcomed the improvements.

Mother-of-three Eleanor Davies, who lives in Whitehawk, moved on to the estate two years ago. She became a volunteer with the First Stop Keeping Safe Project after visiting the Whitehawk Family Centre.

Miss Davies visited the family centre, became a volunteer for a community group and is now training as a community development worker.

At the centre she met Mo Romano and was inspired to become a volunteer. She said: "I'm going to stay here and I'm ambitious."

People outside East Brighton may have little concept of the level of deprivation which existed on their doorstep in a city which gives the appearance of being a centre of wealth.

However, one simple improvement to the area which has led to a significant improvement to people's lives is the community minibus.

People previously trapped on the estate can now travel across Britain or just across the city, whether it be a day trip to Yorkshire, a motorcycle course in Wales or taking a children's football team to another part of Sussex.

New Deal is giving people in East Brighton, who were previously getting a raw deal, an equal opportunity at life.