Close Ties
In a special feature in partnership with Local Trust, Hilary Armstrong and Matt Leach explore the role communities and neighbourhoods can play in transforming Britain
As Labour plans for government, a variety of national problems – from health services in crisis to a deteriorating global order – are vying for its attention. But many of the issues people face on a day-to-day basis have local causes and correspondingly local solutions. Looking through the lens of neighbourhoods and communities, as the last Labour government did, will be essential if Labour is to achieve its decade of national renewal. In particular, as the party fleshes out ambitious targets for economic growth, it must make sure such growth is widely distributed.
In this short collection, Labour peer Hilary Armstrong and Local Trust chief executive Matt Leach set out a vision of empowered communities, working together with national government to target the most pressing social and economic issues.
1. Hilary Armstrong on social exclusion and neighbourhood renewal
2. Matt Leach on mission-driven government at the neighbourhood level
Image credit: Local Trust
Local Trust
For more than a decade, Local Trust has been delivering the Big Local programme, which trusts local people to lead the regeneration of their neighbourhoods. It is a National Lottery Community Fund supported programme which in 2012 committed £1.15m to each of 150 deprived communities across England to spend over 10 to 15 years – the largest neighbourhood-based investment programme since the New Deal for Communities programmes of the late 1990s.
Local Trust