Steel town like Shotton will need aid for years

The report concludes that organisations and agencies that should be helping communities recover are still not working closely enough together to tackle the problem effectively.

In May, Welsh Assembly First Minister Rhodri Morgan announced a �66m aid package to help rebuild the steel communities affected by the Corus closures

The five-month study in Ebbw Vale, Llanwern, Bryngwyn and Shotton was led by Professors Peter Fairbrother and Kevin Morgan.

They argue that the assembly should be pressing the government to extend European rules to require companies planning redundancies to develop social plans for communities, as they have in France and Germany.

They also recommend that Wales should be a "learning economy", and suggest that there is little evidence so far that a comprehensive approach is in place for areas badly affected by job losses in recent years.

We need a deliberate policy that is, in the current jargon, joined up.

Professor Kevin Morgan

Professor Morgan said he could see no reason why the economic development bodies involved, which compete for a share of the public purse, should not work together more efficiently.

"I don't agree that they are bound to be competitive," he said.

"From a community point of view these services need to be integrated.

"We need a deliberate policy that is, in the current jargon, joined up."

Areas such as Ebbw Vale, he added, needed more imaginative policies - with input from local people - to tackle their deprivation.

"Traditional policy recipes will simply not work."

Other recommendations in the report include improved public transport to help local people commute and calls for an annual review of regeneration policies by independent experts.