“Joyz-n-the-Hood”

In its May 2025 report titled “The Anatomy of Mission Critical Neighbourhoods,” the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods laid bare the stark and deeply entrenched challenges confronting some of the most disadvantaged communities across England. These areas referred to as mission critical neighbourhoods are home to nearly one million people, many of whom face a daily reality shaped by systemic inequality and limited opportunity.

The Commission’s findings were sobering. In these neighbourhoods:

• Half of all adults are economically inactive, meaning they are neither in work nor actively seeking employment, a figure that reflects both structural barriers and a lack of accessible opportunities.

• Forty percent of working-age residents have no formal qualifications, a rate more than twice the national average, severely limiting their prospects in an increasingly skills-driven economy.

• Gross Value Added (GVA) per working-age person is 40% lower than the average across all neighbourhoods, highlighting a significant productivity gap and a lack of economic dynamism.

• Spending on means-tested welfare benefits is more than double the national average, underscoring the depth of deprivation and the scale of reliance on state support.

In light of these findings, the Commission issued a clear and urgent call for a focused and sustained programme of investment and support, specifically tailored to the unique needs of these communities. And to that, I can only say: hear, hear. Indeed, anyone who has had the dubious pleasure of sharing a room with me at any point over the past twelve months will likely have heard me wax lyrical perhaps a little too often about the heyday of area-based regeneration. Under the last Labour Government, there was a veritable explosion of such initiatives. Programmes like the Deprived Area Fund, Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders, Local Enterprise Growth Initiative, Neighbourhood Management Pathfinders, Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, New Deal for Communities, Sure Start, and the Working Neighbourhoods Fund along with others I’ve probably long since forgotten represented a concerted effort to tackle place-based disadvantage head-on.

Having been involved in evaluating many of these initiatives, I’m under no illusions that they were all flawless. Some were far from it. But the wholesale withdrawal from area-based regeneration in 2010 was, in my view, nothing short of a reckless and ideologically driven act of socio-economic vandalism. Since that retreat, the third sector has done what it always does stepping in valiantly to plug the gaps left by the state, often with limited resources and little recognition. Local authorities, too, have done their utmost to support vulnerable communities, despite being hamstrung by a decade and a half of brutal budget cuts. Meanwhile, national programmes like the Regional Growth Fund and the Local Growth Fund have delivered mixed results at best and crucially, neither demonstrated any real interest in neighbourhood-level issues.

More recently, some Police and Crime Commissioners have taken matters into their own hands, recognising that prevention is not only more humane but also more cost-effective than cure. They’ve begun investing in grassroots projects aimed at tackling the root causes of violent crime poverty, exclusion, and lack of opportunity rather than simply responding to its symptoms.

In what appeared to be a last-ditch attempt to show some semblance of concern for the so-called “left behind” places, successive Conservative Governments introduced the Levelling Up Fund and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The former barely acknowledged the socio-economic realities facing many communities, while the latter was woefully under-resourced compared to the European Structural and Investment Funds (ERDF and ESF) it was ostensibly designed to replace.

And then, something rather unexpected happened. The Government unveiled the Long Term Plan for Towns. Seemingly out of nowhere, 75 towns were each handed an allocation of £20 million funding they hadn’t requested, for projects they hadn’t yet conceived. It was a curious move, to say the least. But just as local leaders began to get their heads around what this windfall might mean, along came a General Election, casting a long shadow of uncertainty over whether these surprise investments would ever actually materialise. By what can only be described as a rather striking coincidence, the very same 75 towns that were unexpectedly selected for the Long Term Plan for Towns have now reappeared in the newly launched Plan for Neighbourhoods. A quick visit to the programme’s website reveals what appears to be a somewhat clumsy attempt to repackage old ideas specifically, a noticeable copy-and-paste job from legacy documents associated with the New Deal for Communities. The framing may be new, but the underlying structure feels distinctly familiar.

What remains unchanged, however, is the persistent and problematic bias in how resources are allocated. As with previous initiatives, the current programme mandates that approximately three-quarters of the available funding must be directed towards capital investments bricks, mortar, and infrastructure. While such investments are undoubtedly important, they do not, on their own, create thriving communities. As anyone with experience in local regeneration will tell you, meaningful and sustained service provision requires a long-term commitment to adequate revenue funding the kind that supports people, programmes, and services over time.

Initially, there was a genuine concern that this might represent the full extent of the current Labour Government’s strategy for addressing the complex and interwoven socio-economic challenges facing neighbourhoods across the UK. Given the repeated warnings about the dire state of public finances, many feared that bold action might be off the table. But those fears now appear to have been premature. In fact, it seems that much more has been quietly brewing behind the scenes and we may soon find ourselves intoxicated by the prospect of significant, sustained investment in our most deprived communities.

The Chancellor’s Spending Review, published in June 2025, included a series of announcements that could mark a turning point in how we approach neighbourhood-level regeneration:

• A commitment to improving 350 of the most deprived communities through targeted investment in community cohesion, regeneration efforts, and enhancements to the public realm. This signals a welcome shift towards holistic place-making, rather than piecemeal interventions.

• 25 ‘trailblazer neighbourhoods’ including 20 in England, one in Northern Ireland, two in Scotland, and two in Wales will each receive up to £20 million over the next decade. These funds are earmarked for community-led projects designed to deliver tangible improvements that residents can see and feel in their everyday lives.

• A £240 million capital investment in a new Growth Mission Fund, spanning the years 2026–27 to 2029–30. This fund will support projects that aim to stimulate job creation and drive the economic regeneration of local communities, with a focus on sustainable growth and inclusive development.

Of course, as ever, the devil or perhaps the angel will be in the detail. The success of these initiatives will depend not just on the size of the investment, but on how it is designed, delivered, and evaluated. And so, if I may be so bold, I’d like to make one small request to those currently tasked with shaping these programmes: please take the time to read through some of the evaluations of previous regeneration efforts. There is a wealth of learning available insights into what worked well, what didn’t, and why.

Better still, why not reach out to some of the seasoned economic development professionals who were involved in those earlier programmes? Many of them remain deeply passionate about this work and would be more than willing to share their knowledge some might even do so voluntarily, simply because they care about the future of these communities.

Keith Burge, Principal, Smarter Economics