Barbara Roche has defended the government's plans for urban renewal.

The social exclusion minister used a Help the Aged lecture on Wednesday evening to emphasise that ministers had a long-term strategy, which included enhancing capacity amongst grass roots organisations.

She also commended the National Service Framework for Older People and the work of the Experience Corps.

Forum Response: Help the Aged

Alan Burnett, Help the Aged's policy officer for community living, told ePolitix.com: "Barbara Roche mounted a measured, thoughtful, and well-informed defence of government policy for urban renewal.

"She demonstrated an awareness of the difficulties facing many older people living on low income in deprived areas in the UK. The hard hitting findings of Help the Aged funded research undertaken by Keele University into the difficulties faced by older people in inner cities were cited. So also were the minister's own experiences of meeting her older constituents, and visiting worthwhile projects involving senior citizens elsewhere.

"Some observers of urban neighbourhood renewal policy in England might say that it was about time that the government acknowledged the contribution that senior citizens can and should make. Certainly the glossy publications which came out a couple of years ago made very little mention of older people referred to by the minister as 'always present and sticking to their neighbourhoods' in her speech. Here young people and ethnic minorities held centre stage, and quite rightly.

"There are no less than 3.7 million people over 60 years of age living in the 88 most deprived local authority areas in England. Millions of pounds are being pumped into the areas through the mechanism of local strategic partnerships. All the research shows that older residents are attached to the areas in which they live - and have done so for many years. But it is also true that many of them are dissatisfied with the changing environment in which they find themselves.

"Of course not all older people who live in deprived neighbourhoods are poor, and not all impoverished pensioners live in low amenity areas. What all attending this annual lecture would agree on is the commitment to involve older people in policies, and projects, which affect them - whoever they are and wherever they live. But the questions remain, and were not fully explored during the evening - How, when, and where."