Peter Brown, chairman of the Merseyside Civic Society, has accused housing associations and councils of running down inner city areas in Liverpool to secure development sites on the cheap. Brown makes the claim in written evidence to a parliamentary enquiry investigating the government’s Housing Market Renewal (HMR) programme. Brown said: “The whole enterprise smacks of a conspiracy between the housing associations and local authority to ‘carve up’ the local property market between themselves.” He said that a failure to invest in their property led to them falling empty, others in the area were then offered the chance to sell at depressed prices. New Heartlands, the body awarded funds by the HMR to tackle Liverpool’s housing problem, said there was no evidence for the claims.