The government's new ‘pride in place’ strategy promises to empower communities to restore local spaces and revive high streets. The widened and rebranded regeneration scheme forms a key pillar of its response to Reform, but it remains to be seen whether it will mark a real shift in power away from the centre, writes Alex Walker.
As the party faithful prepared to head to Liverpool for Labour’s annual conference, the government released its ‘pride in place’ strategy. It confirmed the revitalisation of some of Britain’s most disadvantaged communities as a central plank in the government’s response to the challenge posed by Reform UK. This agenda has a clear political appeal for the government, and investing in social infrastructure can bring important wider benefits – as its Conservative predecessors recognised. Indeed, much of this expands on plans initiated under the previous government, although Labour has placed greater emphasis on putting communities in control of how new funding is spent. However, more detail and scrutiny will be needed to assess if the rhetoric of local empowerment heralds a meaningful shift or is political window dressing.
The flagship component of the strategy is the Pride in Place Programme, which expands and rebadges the previously announced Plan for Neighbourhoods (which was itself a rebranded and modified version of the Sunak government’s Long-Term Plan for Towns). Up to £20mn will be available to 169 places over a 10-year period (as well as the 75 previously announced towns), with a further 95 communities receiving £1.5mn over two years as part of the Pride in Place Impact Fund. Taken together, this means around £5bn to spend on a range of community-building interventions such as fixing up high streets, tackling social cohesion issues or developing new public spaces.
Much of this has been retained from the Sunak-era plans, but Labour has rolled the programme out more widely, focused on smaller areas, and adopted a different needs-based selection metric. It has also introduced a new set of strategic objectives – stronger communities, thriving places, and local empowerment – and an expanded list of pre-approved interventions.
Why focus on this? The strategy connects the social capital of ‘strong’ communities with better socio-economic outcomes, including increases in productivity and community resilience. The theory is that meaningful connections between different members of the community matter as they enable cooperation that brings tangible benefits. And this requires institutions and physical spaces that bring people together to create these networks and norms. Research has found significant evidence for the wider benefits of different forms of social and cultural infrastructure (think community gardens, local museums and youth centres). The importance of these kinds of assets features prominently in the strategy. And there is also evidence to indicate that this approach works. New Labour’s New Deal for Communities, which pioneered this kind of long-term area-based initiative and is often pointed to as the government’s inspiration, was found to have narrowed the gap between some of the UK’s most deprived communities and the rest of the country.
But the appeal is also undoubtedly political. Although Reform UK is not mentioned by name, it is clear that the party’s surging popularity has shaped the government’s thinking. The measures set out are its ‘alternative to the forces trying to pull us apart’, new Secretary of State Steve Reed writes in the foreword. The hope for Labour, as Morgan Jones has written, is that the delivery of local improvements can arrest the sense of decline pervading many communities and build trust, taking the wind out of the sails of Reform UK’s brand of anti-politics. As a recent piece by Rosa Marks states ‘the values that good-quality social and cultural provision create may provide an important bulwark against the pessimism and sense of grievance which populist parties mobilise and benefit from.’
This provides some clue as to why the government has taken the striking decision to put ‘pride in place’, a concept popularised by the Johnson government, at the heart of this rebrand. It was the geography of discontent exposed by the Brexit vote that gave rise to the notion of levelling up as Johnson’s post-Brexit offer to ‘left behind’ places. Labour now sees Reform UK as its main competition for these voters. Starmer is increasingly seeking to draw a distinction between the ‘politics of grievance’ – the idea that Reform UK does not want to see things get better – and a more positive vision which combines an appreciation of belonging with progress.
But while ‘pride in place’ may encapsulate this message, the strategy doesn’t go into much detail about why it matters. The Secretary of State’s foreword makes a connection between manifestations of local decline, loss of pride and division and distrust. And there is evidence to suggest a linkage between levels of place-based pride and other outcomes, such as community cohesion and social capital, but the idea that more deprived areas are the most lacking in pride is contested. Unlike the 2022 levelling up white paper, there is no commitment to a pride-related target (or any other clear targets for that matter), and nor does it feature in the selection methodology.
Reed is clear though about what he thinks is behind this local decline: ‘a style of government which deprived people of control.’ He situates the strategy alongside the English devolution bill as part of a broader Labour project of transferring power away from Whitehall. Much is made of the fact that this initiative involves not just funding but also empowerment. Decisions are to be taken by neighbourhood boards that bring together residents, local businesses, grassroots campaigners, workplace representatives, community leaders, and the local MP, working in partnership with the local authority. The boards are responsible for producing a regeneration plan that is reviewed by central government, and plans will only be approved if the boards ‘have genuinely engaged their communities’.
These governance arrangements are broadly in line with those set out under Sunak’s towns plan, but the government has indicated it wants to go further. It has set out some best practice for community engagement, which references techniques like participatory budgeting and delegating planning and delivery to community groups where possible. Research has shown that actively involving community voices is vital, as they are more likely to understand the meaning and purposes people ascribe to different forms of social infrastructure in their area. And some commentators have suggested that current efforts should go beyond partnership to ‘true community ownership’. It is clear, however, that this element of the programme is still a work in progress, and it remains to be seen if it will break with the ingrained habit of micro-managing funds of this kind from the centre.
There is also some wariness that the government might be going big on community funding to avoid other, more expensive, options. Some have argued that it would be more effective to increase local government grant funding, given that financial pressures are forcing councils to sell off community assets such as libraries. And the same could be said for investment in other forms of infrastructure – the launch of the strategy coincided with the news that plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail had been delayed again due to concerns about long-term costs. Reviving community spaces in deprived areas could well bring multiple benefits. But it would be a mistake to see this approach as an adequate substitute for sufficiently funding local government and investing in conventional infrastructure projects, both of which are also necessary to support strong communities.
Image: Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government visit the Park Lane Centre as the government launches its Pride in Place strategy. Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street, Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3, via Flikr
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
