Plan for Neighbourhoods

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Alex Norris)]

This Government’s defining mission is growth, and we are determined that nowhere will be left behind in that pursuit.

Over the last decades the impact of austerity and decline has not been equally felt. Some neighbourhoods have been starved of investment and reform, worsening deprivation and making the path to growth more difficult than in other communities.

The new £1.5 billon plan for neighbourhoods will deliver up to £20 million of funding and support over the next decade into 75 communities across the UK, laying the foundations to kickstart local growth and drive-up living standards.

No more sticking plasters; no more short-term fixes—rather, a 10-year programme allocating £2 million a year to unlock the potential of the places people call home. This goes hand in hand with everything this Government are delivering to rebuild our country: whether that is the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war, tackling NHS waiting lists or ending the “Whitehall knows best” approach by empowering local leaders to strengthen communities and determine their future.

The programme will help revitalise local areas and fight deprivation at root cause by zeroing in on three strategic objectives: building thriving places, strengthening communities and taking back control.

In each of the 75 communities, the Government will support the establishment of a new “neighbourhood board”, bringing together residents, local businesses, and grass-roots campaigners to draw up and implement a regeneration plan for their area. Communities have come up with their own grass-roots solutions: opening foodbanks and warm banks, shopping local to back jobs and enterprises in their high streets, and raising support through trade unions, charities and civil society bodies. Our plan for neighbourhoods will empower local people to take ownership for driving the renewal of their community.

Our country has all the raw ingredients to ignite growth—untapped talent and potential across every town, city, village and estate. But we also have people without enough to get by, and places and public services which have been hollowed out. People feel divided and disempowered, perceptions which are made worse by deprivation that for too long has been tackled with sticking-plaster politics.

Together, this Government will work in partnership with people on the ground and local authorities to deliver in every corner of the country. The plan for neighbourhoods is just the start: through the introduction of community right to buy and further initiatives to support high streets and communities, we will give people and places the resources and the powers they need to succeed. I will deposit a copy of the prospectus in the Library of the House.