Devolution must deliver tangible economic change for England's left-behind towns and neighbourhoods if it is to retain public support, the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (ICON) warns in a new report published today.

The report argues that fulfilling Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s pledge of ‘good growth in every postcode’ depends on placing disadvantaged communities at the heart of regional growth plans.

New polling shows 52% of the public support greater powers and funding for Mayors, while people favour channelling more funding to disadvantaged areas over others by 38% to 24%. However, 53% believe devolution will leave the gap between richer and poorer places unchanged or wider still.

Although most of England's most deprived neighbourhoods already have a Metro Mayor, ICON's analysis of dozens of growth, transport and skills strategies found a ‘rhetoric and reality gap,’ with commitments to tackling disadvantage rarely backed by concrete pathways connecting residents to growing industries.

The report calls for Mayors to establish Pride in Place Councils and target investment at disadvantaged areas, and for Government to devolve business rates and National Insurance relief powers, create a Neighbourhood Spending Lock, appoint a Chief Secretary of the Nations and Regions, and make JobsPlus a permanent employment support model.

Ross Mudie, Head of Research and Analysis at ICON, said: ‘The public supports devolution in principle, but they also associate it with deprived and post-industrial places, and they overwhelmingly want to see them prioritised. There is a real risk that public support may fall if they cannot see devolution delivering improvements for these places.

‘The test then should be whether devolution changes the economic prospects of the towns and neighbourhoods that deindustrialisation left behind and centralisation made too easy to overlook.’

Further reading:

Pride in Place: Breathing new life into neglected communities