Rewilding civic life: Can we cultivate social capital? If so, how?
This working paper brings together evidence from the Big Local programme and distils learning about the practice of community-led renewal.
Kinship Works have been working with Local Trust to help tell the story of Big Local and the practice of rebuilding civic capacity and social capital. This working paper contains the project’s interim findings. Through an evidence synthesis of 100+ research reports and international studies, it explores questions including: What was Big Local? Did it work? And how should its lessons now be applied to the next generation of investment in places?
The paper’s analogy with rewilding captures something of the organic nature of community-led development, and the importance of providing spaces and habitats for community to grow.
The hope is for this work to be a timely contribution to a live policy debate. The UK government’s Pride in Place and neighbourhood health initiatives add decisive momentum to a growing movement for civic renewal. But to be successful and sustainable, these initiatives must diligently apply the lessons from the last two decades of practice.
This is an interim output from Kinship Works and builds towards a final report which will be published in January 2026.
