A neighbourhood strategy for national renewal
This report is the final product from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for 'left behind' neighbourhoods' inquiry into levelling up, which outlines how to ensure communities that have long missed out on their fair share of services and opportunities are no longer ‘left behind’.
The APPG for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods launched an inquiry into the levelling up agenda following the publication of the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper in the spring of 2022. It examined how closely the government’s policy programme aligns with the needs and aspirations of people who live in the most deprived or ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods.
This report makes a compelling case for remaking levelling up to put ‘left behind’ areas front and centre of a new mission of national renewal. Evidence heard over the course of the APPG’s inquiry emphasised that community-led change can transform a neighbourhood’s fortunes.
To be successful and sustainable, efforts to address the country’s place-based inequalities must:
- Be led by local people, the experts best placed to know what needs to be done to improve local outcomes
- Reflect local needs and circumstances, not follow a national template
- Entrust decision-making, including funding, to communities, not Whitehall or the town hall
- Invest long-term in communities, to build capacity, social infrastructure, opportunity
and resilience.
Local Trust acted as secretariat to the APPG for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods over the course of its activities in the 2019-2024 parliament.
