'Dirty dozen' boroughs set for clean up

The man who led the revival of depressed areas across the US is to tackle 12 deprived areas of Britain, using shopping to regenerate them.

Bill Boler's "dirty dozen" list will not be published until the end of the month. But the Standard has learned that it includes the London boroughs of Haringey, Lewisham and Waltham Forest, the Prime Minister's constituency Sedgefield and Bradford.

Mr Boler has been recruited by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in a move similar-to the hiring of New York transport supremo Bob Kiley by Mayor Ken Livingstone, the magazine Property Week reports today.

He hopes to attract leading retailers to trigger regeneration as they did in projects he led in New York's Harlem, Los Angeles's South Central district and south Chicago.

Sainsbury's, Tesco, B&Q, Boots and Marks & Spencer are among supporters of the project.