*School of Town and Regional Planning

Approaches to urban regeneration now include the geographical targeting of aid on disadvantaged or excluded communities, the deployment of partnership mechanisms, an emphasis on strategic agendas and the identification of thematic cross-cutting approaches to the prevention of social exclusion and the promotion of social inclusion. The underlying philosophy of urban regeneration policy remains interventionist although today it can embrace negotiation between interested parties and policy networks (Moore and Booth, 1989). Whilst there may be policy experimentation- for example, a degree of private sector involvement-this remains controlled from the centre based largely on a consensus of the partners involved in local urban regeneration (Judge, 1993). Approaches based on a social inclusion agenda seek to present a more dynamic understanding of community disadvantage and regeneration (Cameron and Davoudi, 1998) and attempts to deal with embedded processes of government failure and institutional inertia (Robertson, 1998). Notwithstanding the sophisticated composition of urban regeneration policy, its execution is still based on the conventional instruments of government expenditure and funding for the social, economic and environmental improvement of urban areas. The allocation of government expenditure ha