Pride in Place

Good afternoon from New Economy Brief.

In his first speech on economic policy since he emerged as the likely next Prime Minister, outgoing Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham put boosting devolution and tackling regional inequality at the heart of his vision for reordering the UK economy. 

But while the rhetorical emphasis and radicalism was new, much of the diagnosis was not. Successive governments have set out plans to boost investment in the communities and parts of the country that need it most. In this week’s New Economy Brief, we dive into Pride in Place, the outgoing Starmer government’s contribution to tackling this most deep-rooted of issues.

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A long-term investment in communities.

‍In September 2025 the government published the strategy for its new Pride in Place Programme, widely seen as the successor to the previous government’s Levelling Up strategy. With an initial budget of £5bn (increased this year to £5.8bn), the programme will give hundreds of UK areas up to £20 million of funding over the next 10 years. The government says this has three core objectives: to build stronger communities, create thriving places and empower people to take back control of their communities. 

Transparent selection. Neighbourhoods were selected for the programme using a published, quantitative methodology primarily based on deprivation (using the government’s Index of Multiple Deprivation) and community need (using the Community Needs Index), rather than through a competitive bidding process. This aims to direct funds towards the country’s most socially and economically disadvantaged areas. This is different from the last government’s Towns Fund, which involved competitive bidding and opaque decision-making by civil servants and ministers – a selection process which the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee concluded was “not impartial” in a highly critical inquiry in 2020. Analysis of the Towns Fund found that Conservative-held areas, particularly marginals, were much likelier to be selected. 

Putting communities in the driving seat. Pride in Place stems from the idea that the decline many places have suffered as a result of de-industrialisation and austerity is corrosive to UK society, responsible for dividing communities and reducing trust in public institutions. And behind all this, according to the minister in charge of the programme, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Steve Reed, is “a style of government which deprived people of control”. So to reverse this trend, the Pride in Place strategy centres local residents' control over what happens where they live. 

For example, how local areas spend the funding they receive will be decided by Neighbourhood Boards, made up of residents, businesses and others in partnership with local authorities. This is seen as a rebuttal to the more top-down approach of the Johnson Government’s Levelling Up funding which saw £2.5bn unspent in the four years after its launch. Community-powered neighbourhood governance campaigners We’re Right Here say this design “recognises that the power to shape thriving neighbourhoods lies with the people who live there”.

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Early optimism from local areas making the cut.

‍This approach is winning plaudits from recipients, with the Chair of one newly formed Neighbourhood Board reflecting that the fund is a ‘once in a generation chance to make a huge difference’ to their area. Initial consultations suggest that there is strong local appetite for a partnership model, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach imposed by central government. This builds on evidence from the Blair-era New Deal for Communities that long-term local investment can narrow the gap in deprivation and that felt experiences – like pride and belonging – are an important and underused source of social cohesion.

But millions will be left out. Analysis from JRF suggests that there are up to 3.5m people, across 430 neighbourhoods of high deprivation and community need – the conditions for funding allocations – who are not due to receive any Pride in Place funding. These gaps are because only one neighbourhood per constituency can receive funding. This approach leaves a risk of cliff-edges between neighbouring communities with and without funding, as there is no requirement to engage residents in adjacent areas even if they are also experiencing high levels of deprivation.

A drop in the ocean. This patchwork has led some to question whether the Pride in Place strategy can deliver truly transformative change. From a Scottish perspective, JRF argues that the level of funding is “a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of need”. This is partly due to those missed neighbourhoods, and partly to the lack of coordination across national, devolved and local governments. There are some fears this is political, with the Bennett School of Public Policy noting ‘the government might be going big on community funding to avoid other, more expensive, options’, including more traditional infrastructure investment. 

From Neighbourhood Boards to genuine power. Back to the fund itself, there is potential for more meaningful power transfer within the design of the fund. Donna Hall and Andrew Laird have made the case that “involving just funded community organisations in a Neighbourhood Board isn’t a meaningful shift of power to people.” The long-term nature of Pride In Place funding means it has the potential to genuinely give power away through approaches like community-led delivery and capacity building, but this needs to be embedded from the beginning.

‍Meaningfully backing community wealth building. Elsewhere, organisations focused on local empowerment have suggested that the fund needs to embed support for more transformative approaches. The Centre for Local Economies (CLES) argues for a focus on community wealth-building, while Shared Future CIC calls for a shift to participatory budgeting. Although the approved ways to spend the funding include community ownership, community-led housing and other wealth-building activities, CLES argue these simply won’t happen without strategic support from central government.

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A place-based rebuttal to the far-right.

Zooming out to the national political landscape, commentators have seen all this as a pillar of Labour’s response to Reform. In announcing the fund Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Steve Reed positioned the strategy as “our alternative to the forces trying to pull us apart”, and Keir Starmer has said the fund supports “true patriots”. But there are fears the strategy could fail to deliver on community cohesion before it's even begun, smothered by local problems like chronically underfunded councils and the major reforms to local government that are currently underway.

Burnham’s Manchesterism agenda could shape the fund’s future. In setting out his vision for the UK this week, Andy Burnham has centred the role of local and devolved power in driving growth. If he succeeds in becoming Prime Minister, he has made commitments to “the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen”, arguing that “growth cannot be ordered from the top down.” On paper at least, his view of ‘Manchesterism’ – in his own words a rejection of “the old trickle down model” – suggests he may want to go a lot further in the direction set by the Pride in Place programme.