This year marks 25 years since the publication of the Social Exclusion Unit’s groundbreaking report ‘Bringing Britain together: a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal.’ This kickstarted New Labour ‘s approach to tackling place-based disadvantage through its neighbourhood renewal strategy, providing the basis for a raft of policies and programmes supporting resident-led regeneration of deprived neighbourhoods. Generally regarded as successful on their own terms, subsequent governments failed to build on their momentum and deliver on the strategy’s long-term ambition that “that within 10 to 20 years no- one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live.”
We used this consultation to bring together diverse perspectives from senior policy experts, practitioners, community leaders and parliamentarians to explore the case for a new focus on deprived neighbourhoods; to discuss the learning from previous initiatives and map out the government action and targeted interventions that should be taken to turn them around.
This consultation was held in partnership with Local Trust.
