Ensuring Communities Take Pride of Place

In this article, Prof. Donna Hall and Andrew Laird argue that to successfully deliver the Pride in Place programme, communities need to be given pride-of-place in both governance and delivery.

Most of us have something in our homes that takes pride of place. Something we value deeply and put on display. A family photograph, a child’s drawing, a treasured ornament that was your grandma’s.

Imagine if communities took pride of place in neighbourhood renewal. Imagine if residents weren’t seen as “demand” by public service leaders but as brilliant assets – the heart of the community and a source of much needed positive energy and ideas.  

The new “Pride in Place” Strategy was launched by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government at the end of September 2025. The strategy marks a significant step forward for public service reform across the UK.

“Pride in Place” aims to tackle the root causes of the destructive decline in local pride, including: deindustrialisation; the impact of fourteen years of austerity: the emaciation of many (unreformed) public services; the ongoing cost of living crisis; the centralisation of power in Whitehall; decisions made about communities without their input; a lack of affordable housing; poor management of the asylum process and the blaming of immigration by politicians for society’s ills. This is not even a complete list!

“Pride in Place” expands and rebrands the “Plan for Neighbourhoods”, building on the previous government’s “Long-Term Plan for Towns”. Up to £20 million of resources will be available to 169 neighbourhoods over a ten-year period (as well as the 75 previously announced towns). In total there will be approximately £5 billion over ten years to rebuild pride in local communities.

Secretary of State Steve Reed’s foreword to the strategy is interesting. He criticises “a style of government which deprived people of control”, “hoarding power and micromanaging from dark corridors in Whitehall and decisions about communities made without them”. He applies the same criticism of top down to local government “the problem is a ‘we know best’ attitude from those at the top. The answer can only be found in communities themselves…Make no mistake this is a pilot in a new way of governing”.

By “style” of government, we are reasonably assuming that the Minister means New Public Management (NPM), which has resulted in public services getting more “productive” at doing the wrong things – and sometimes not even that. NPM sees people through the lens of individual service silos rather than as real people, and designs services and “interventions” without involving the people we are trying to support. This is a “style” of government which is well and truly out of fashion.

The architecture of “Pride in Place” is very similar in its design to a previous Labour government’s New Deal for Communities (1998 – 2010). This was also an integrated, long-term neighbourhood plan with communities “in the driving seat” focussed on the most deprived neighbourhoods.

The New Deal for Communities hit many of its KPIs and succeeded in narrowing the gap between the most and the least deprived communities. But it didn’t change the “style of government” that Steve Reed describes in his foreword. It didn’t shift the social contract between citizen and state on a long-term sustainable basis. When the money ran out, councils moved out, closing neighbourhood offices and taking integrated teams back to the corporate centre.

This needs to be about more than the money. It needs to address the power imbalance and make a fundamental shift of power to communities. Involving just funded community organisations in a Neighbourhood Board isn’t a meaningful shift of power to people. Communities should be seen as the solution rather than “demand” on the system and need to be properly involved. We have previously written about the erosion of trust between public services and the public here.

The fact that this is a ten-year funding commitment presents an opportunity to think strategically and get away from the crisis-driven, knee-jerking and flip-flopping approach to public services stewardship we have been subjected to by central government for close to ten years.

With this ambition in mind, how do we ensure a tangible, lasting impact from the Pride in Place programme? And how can we ensure communities genuinely take pride-of-place and in turn regain their pride-in-place?

Here are some thoughts on how we could make this happen:

Give power away!

Deep listening to local communities, starting with their intimate knowledge of what goes on in the neighbourhood, their frustrations, the opportunities they see is a skill all public servants should develop and refine. This case study from The Centre for Public Impact, which examines the Wigan Deal, explains how to do it across the whole workforce in a locality.

But don’t stop at supporting your teams to gain a better understanding of the communities they serve. Think about who really holds the power and shift it to communities rather than just dabbling in “engagement” on a list of potential capital projects.

The Pride in Place programme has a requirement for neighbourhood control - but this can manifest in different ways. Neighbourhood Boards can be a mixed bag. Simply making the Chair of the Neighbourhood Board an independent person does not guarantee genuine participation, engagement or power sharing.

Treasure the community volunteers on Neighbourhood Boards who give their time freely. Give them pride of place in the management of the programme. Give them status, pay them commensurably with the public value they add, and appreciate the pressures they face, sometimes within their own communities.

Avoid the “usual suspects” approach and reach out to younger people from diverse backgrounds to make sure a more accurate representation of the community is heard is important. Some Neighbourhood Boards are dominated by statutory services, councillors, MPs, Police, NHS, various council departments, the ‘professional’ paid voluntary sector. This can squeeze out the voices of those who know communities best.

Swap “consultation” events to “co-design cycles” giving choice and influence to local people rather than asking them to rubber stamp decisions that have been made already.

A great recent example is the development of the Sheffield City Goals (actually six “stories”). The work was convened by Sheffield City Council, but deliberately co-produced with; public service partners (NHS, police, universities, housing); voluntary and community organisations; businesses and anchor institutions; and (critically) residents and community leaders. The aim was to create goals for all of Sheffield, not a traditional council led strategy.

Our MV colleagues Yvonne Reinhart and Sally Dickens have gone into more detail on this and set out some really useful practical tips on how local leaders can start putting this genuine empowerment in place right now - see here.

Properly map community assets

Work with local people to build neighbourhood network maps of ALL the assets in the community. These could be buildings such as GP surgeries, schools, post offices or they could be organisations that provide support to their neighbours like community groups or informal grassroots set ups with no funding. Asking “Who makes things happen round here?” and “Where exactly are they?” Explore how the support they provide could be scaled up and good practice expanded across the neighbourhood.

Seek inspiration and ideas from the local community and voluntary sector. They are often providing grassroots support we don’t even know about or appreciate. Fund it properly, nurture great ideas with seed funding.

Get lots of those assets into the hands of communities

Once assets have been mapped alongside local people, exploring community asset transfer is an exciting opportunity to build trust, bake in longevity and repurpose underutilised neighbourhood buildings.

Like many councils, Bristol City has had a community asset transfer programme in place since 2010. In 2020,The Council-run Jubilee swimming pool in Bristol was threatened with closure. In 2022, following a consultation and a community asset transfer process, management of the pool was transferred from the Council to the Friends of Jubilee Pool under a 35-year lease.

Adopt anthropology and embed ethnography

An anthropological approach could be used extensively in Pride in Place areas and in every aspect of public policy. Anthropology (the study of communities, society, cultures, beliefs) and in particular ethnography (immersion in communities to really understand what makes them function well and what causes trust to break down).

Ethnography was at the heart of the Wigan Deal. All frontline teams across the council, NHS, police and wider partners were trained in ethnographic techniques as part of “The Deal Training and the Be Wigan Experience” How do people work together in this neighbourhood? What is the reality of their life and how can we make it better? What are the connections between health, worklessness, housing, transport, social cohesion. This conversation between Dr Robin Pharoah and Prof. Donna Hall explains how the approach was simplified and systematised across Wigan.

Commit long-term 

Ten years seems a long time - but the Pride in Place money will eventually run out. When it does that shouldn’t be a signal to drop it and chase the latest opportunity for central funding. Pride in Place needs to be a long-term commitment to working in partnership with communities. The lessons learned in the Pride in Place areas should be rolled out at scale and pace across the entire council area.

Also, stop doing pilots. Just stop! The language of “pilots” suggests a fully designed solution which you will test for a set period of time. We much prefer the word “prototype” and the Cabinet Office language of “Test, Learn and Grow” where you can make a start knowing your idea is imperfect - but the whole point is to start somewhere and then iterate.

Mark Smith and Andrew Laird have written about Beyond the Test Drive: Turning prototypes into sustainable public service reform.

Stop with all the bureaucracy!

Government funding attracts huge amounts of bureaucracy – most of it unnecessary. Councils should use the Pride in Place programme as a catalyst to streamline grant-giving to local community organisations and trust them to just get on and deliver because they will. We often spend more on monitoring and micromanaging than we give. This case study from Demos describes the Wigan Deal Community Investment Fund which was set up and delivered based on trust between the third sector and funders rather than mistrust. It funded 500 incredible projects which would never have been thought of in a council or a neighbourhood board. It pump-primed innovation, encouraged community organisations to work together rather than breeding competition and tried untested approaches as an investment. Not everything worked… but most did.

Prioritise social capital as well as physical capital

The bulk of Pride in Place is capital funding. Money for buildings rather than people. But it is important to look deeper than just the physical regeneration – look at the social capital gaps and invest in them. Most regeneration programmes ignore the essential social capital of a place. This was a problem with Sure Start – the bulk of the funding from Government was physical capital to create buildings which often ignored what the reality of families’ lives. Support in their own home was what they wanted – but many places put up buildings which families would never want to go to.

Pride in Place as a catalyst for wider public service reform

Free up frontline teams working across public services to work innovatively with communities and those they are supporting. We spend most of our time and money on repeatedly assessing people against the eligibility criteria of separate service silos. This is where we waste so much resource. Create key worker roles, based in truly integrated multi-agency neighbourhood teams, to build relationships and draw in specialisms as and when required rather than putting the expensive specialist at the front door.

Pride in Place is a great opportunity to consider how public services are delivered more collaboratively within a neighbourhood. There are some great examples of where this type of deep collaboration is already working. In Bath and Northeast Somerset, Community Wellbeing Hubs bring statutory, commissioned, and contracted services into one place as well as working in close partnership with a whole range of community the third sector partners.

As core council services have been hit be multiple cuts over many years, leaders are constantly exploring innovative ways to retain service quality but reduce costs. One way to achieve this is to explore the possibility of creating new or expanding existing social enterprises to deliver services. They are closer to communities and free from the bureaucratic hierarchies that often exist within large organisations. An excellent example of how this can be successfully delivered is explained here. An adult social care service in Greater Manchester became an asset-based community interest company called PossAbilities. You can read more about their journey here.

What are we waiting for?

Real change only comes with a deepening of trust between citizens and the state. This isn’t a project but a long-term change to the social contract. It requires a different type of leadership to traditional models to make it work and to make it stick over a long period.

Staff will likely need training and support to break free from the bounds of new public management and see themselves as servants of the public and the place rather than servants of a silo service is critical.

As part of this, council Chief Executives and other organisational leaders could be mentored by members of the community in a reverse mentoring programme to build a rich insight into what it’s like to live in the area.

Only a deep commitment to more Radical Place Leadership from all public service leaders over many years will deliver change in a sustainable way. It’s only when we do this that a “new way of governing” as Steve Reed promised, will become truly embedded and both outlive and have impact beyond the Pride in Place programme.

Prof. Donna Hall

Andrew Laird

Please do get in touch if this chimes with you or if you would like to share your own experience – andrew@mutualventures.co.uk.