Dan Crowe, director of 3ni, examines the Government’s Pride in Place initiative, highlighting how targeted investment, community capacity-building, and hyper-local decision-making are critical to delivering lasting neighbourhood regeneration.

Last Thursday’s announcement by the Government of its Pride in Place programme was a big moment for policy and practice when it comes to helping improve outcomes and opportunities in some of the most disadvantaged communities in the country.

There’s a lot to like in the new programme with up to £5bn available to just under 250 neighbourhoods across the UK over a 10-year period.

Using the Community Needs Index in conjunction with the Index of Multiple Deprivation to target investments on ‘doubly disadvantaged’ neighbourhoods is a smart move. It reflects what we’ve seen through the Big Local programme and our own research at 3ni - referenced in the Pride in Place plan - and insights from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods. All point to the need for targeted support and resources for communities experiencing severe socio-economic deprivation and low levels of essential social infrastructure.

Government has clearly learned some of the lessons of what has gone before, from Big Local to the New Deal for Communities. Second wave Pride in Place neighbourhoods have been identified at the hyper-local level (Middle Layer Super Output Area), a population footprint that lends itself to building the sort of social capital that helps build trust, connections and local relationships.

Policy makers seem to be listening to the evidence.

While the media focus has been on bringing back to life boarded-up buildings, community rescue of derelict pubs and councils blocking unwanted shops, the real story behind this long-term initiative is the unprecedented emphasis on putting local residents and communities in the driving seat of how the regeneration money is spent.

This centring of lived experience and harnessing the aspirations, commitment, skills and know-how of local people is the biggest breakthrough in the Pride of Place programme. It’s exactly the kind of radical localism, genuine community ownership and hyper-local decision-making that 3ni has been advocating. Too many regeneration programmes in the past have been ‘done to’ communities, not with them.

But before we break out the party balloons, let’s be honest. Good intentions don’t always translate into good outcomes. The success of neighbourhood programmes only becomes a reality if we learn those lessons from the past.

To escape the fate of past community regeneration programmes and replicate the success of Big Local, investment is needed in community capacity and foundational social infrastructure, both essential to build and nurture the social capital that strengthens communities, generates resilience and brings the sort of lasting change that people can see and feel.

Social capital – the trust, skills, confidence and networks that enable residents to shape their own future – is just as essential as funding or planning permissions. Indeed, it is this local ‘collective efficacy’ that is essential to the success and sustainability of initiatives such as ‘Community Right to Buy’ and which the new programme recognises.

We explored these issues at our fringe event with the New Statesman at the Labour Party conference this week. The big takeaways were neighbourhood renewal works best when local government is empowered to work hand-in-hand with residents, adapting to what each place needs and where communities are supported to build the linking social capital to partner with key institutions. And for the Pride in Place programme to be a success, we are going to need to develop genuine partnerships between local authorities, communities, the wider public sector, and where they exist, combined authorities, to make this considerable investment work, and for it to leave a legacy.

At 3ni, we’ve been working with local authorities across the country to build a new movement for neighbourhoods. The Pride in Place announcement is exciting and ambitious. Together with the creation of the Community Wealth Fund, it feels like a reset moment with communities being given the resources, authority, and space they need to effect real, meaningful change.

For too long, people have been casual bystanders in their own communities. But now is the chance to give people and communities, with the most skin in the game, the time and tools they need to lead the change they want to see.