The place policy puzzle

In this ever-evolving blog, we share our understanding of the place policy puzzle that has emerged since the current government came to power in July 2024. Our aim is to help different place partners to work together and assemble the relevant pieces to fit the picture of their city, town or neighbourhood, including most recently with policy and funding announcements in the 2025 Budget. 

A need to join the dots locally

Before drilling-down into the potential opportunities for place partnerships from the many pieces of the place policy puzzle, here’s an overview that points to the need to join-up the policy dots at a local level.

1. Policy that does not seem to see places in expected ways: Until the launch of the ‘Pride in Place Strategy’ in September 2025, places as we might recognise them did not seem to feature strongly in national policy pushes. That still partly seems the case with high streets and town centres, despite mentions in the new strategy. A new Community Right to Buy and accompanying rhetoric about it saving high street services, isn’t yet accommpanied by resources and the scope of Business Rates reform is not yet looking like it will have a transformative impact.  Recent announcements about ‘High Streets and Growth Incubators’ and ‘Hospitality and Night-Time Economy Zones’ appear targeted at specific economic themes and localities within town and city centres. The new Strategy provides a good round-up of cross-department policies and their relationships to communities and local economies -it’s nearly as good as this ‘place policy puzzle’!
2. Interventions targeted at ‘people in place’: Announcements of what is now being presented as two phases of the ‘Pride in Place Programme’, shows tight targeting of need within hyper-local communities that mostly align with the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods’ “Mission Critical Neighbourhoods” and central government priorities for inequities in economic growth, health, education, exposure to crime and access to clean energy. Gone has a reliance on a trickle-down effect or simply seeing people as users of place, with an emphasis more on direct impacts on residents of more deprived communities. That said, best estimates are that during the life of this Parliament, the programme alone will begin to benefit only 2% of the population.
3. Devolving responsibility both outwards and inwards: The Devolution Bill in England simultaneously seems to be seeking to spread responsibility (if not power) to the Strategic Authority level, while local government reform may leave communities feeling more remote from decisions affecting them. The end of funding support for Neighbourhood Planning suggests that the latter may not be an unforeseen consequence. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been there, done that and can maybe offer tips on the best geographical level to pitch decision-making.
4. Policy puzzle and progress will vary across the country:  Due to a commitment to channel support through established Strategic Authorities like the Manchester and West Yorkshire Mayoral Authorities, and a focus on targeting high opportunity and extreme need, the roll-out of policies and support will be uneven across the U.K. The devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland seem set to get their share of funding, with the freedom to develop the detail beneath broadly-scoped headings.
5. Creating chances to join-up the policy dots: Strategic authorities, unitary councils and emerging approaches to local governance, have the chance to create an holistic approach across ministerial policy silos. Get this right through place partnerships or place-based delivery, and housing, deprivation, creative industries and active travel, for example, might even be linked as people-centred services that are coordinated by place!

This overview aligns with our perspective of the outlook taken in the House of Lords’ inquiry report, “High Streets: Life beyond retail“, and the government reponse, that many of the policies and practices need to be determined, developed and joined-up, at the local level through empowered local partnerships.

Partners’ checklist of policy potential

At People & Places we rarely recommend that place partnerships should solely follow the cash, though its good to see if locally-led plans align with national policy pushes. Here we give you the headlines of potential policies and programmes to engage with:

A. Delivering devolution and local government reform

This is the big opportunity to watch and, as we reflect in our blog on “how local is local“, it remains important to find ways to follow through on the government’s aspiration for stronger community arrangements for the way councils engage at a neighbourhood or area level.  The White Paper also stated a desire to “rewire the relationship between town and parish councils and principal local authorities, strengthening expectations on engagement and community voice.”

Equally, the new unitary authorities need to find a way to help places and their partnerships to feed in local understanding and enable delivery of Strategic Authority policies and programmes that cover: transport and local infrastructure; skills and employment support; housing and strategic planning; economic development and regeneration; environment and climate change; health, wellbeing and public service reform; public safety.

Already established strategic authorities are leading the way with tailored approaches to revitalising towns including the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority’s £10million Vibrant and Sustainable High Streets Fund, while the North East Combined Authority have set-up a new High Streets Commission with an initial £850,000 allocation to support its work.

B. Building homes not houses

Two key policy strands of the Government’s commitment to create 1.5 million new homes that can impact existing towns and cities are:

1. New Towns Programme:  High-level aims have been agreed by the Government’s New Towns Task Force are:

• Unlocking potential economic growth
• Accelerating housing delivery with a mix of tenures including affordable homes and high-quality social housing
• Building strong communities with the necessary infrastructure, services, and amenities
• Creating environmentally resilient places that support the government’s net zero agenda
• Contributing to transforming the way that large settlements are delivered, including through longer-term planning and the approach to infrastructure provision

2.  Affordable and Social Housing: £39 billion for a successor to the Affordable Homes Programme that will run           over 10 years from 2026-27 to 2035-36.

C. Streamlining planning processes

Planning processes are both being streamlined at the local level and coordinated strategically, away from communities. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is presented as central to the government’s plan to “get Britain building again and deliver economic growth“, was introduced to parliament in March 2025, with the intention of it becoming legislation by the summer.

Two key strategic measures in the Bill aimed accelerating large-scale developments are:

1. Spatial Development Strategies (SDS): The Bill places a duty on Strategic Authorities, County and Unitary Councils to prepare an SDS for their area, overseen  by “strategic planning boards” of these authorities.  SDSs must include policies on the use and development of land that are of strategic importance to the area and can include policies on housing and identify infrastructure requirements.  They will be part of the overall development plan for the wider area and Local Plans will have to conform with them.
2.  Development Corporations: The Bill introduces significant updates to the legislation for development corporations including new objectives on sustainable development and their use for urban extensions, not just as entirely new settlements. Importantly, the remit of mayoral development corporations is extended to include greenfield land and empower mayors to be more proactive in using the development levers they hold.

Measures contained in the Bill that will impact on localised decision-making include:

• Delivering a more efficient and predictable system for energy infrastructure projects. As well as introducing a bill discount scheme, new guidance will show how communities hosting transmission infrastructure can benefit from funding for projects like sports clubs, educational programmes, or leisure facilities.
• Unlocking land and securing public value for large-scale investment through reforms to the compulsory purchase order process and compensation rules. This includes town councils to acquire land at existing use value to deliver affordable social housing.
• Improving certainty and decision-making in the planning system, including introducing a new delegation scheme to modernise local planning committees and mandatory training for planning committee councillors Streamline and improve the efficiency of delivering transport infrastructure projects, including the installation of electric vehicle public charge points.

D. Transitioning from Shared Prosperity to targeted Local Growth

A new Local Growth Fund will be established across England from 2026-27 to complete the transition from the U.K. Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). Allocations of UKSPF for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2026-27 to 2028-29 will be at the same level as 2025-26.

The Local Growth Fund for England seems set to be weighted to boost key areas. The 2025 Budget says that a £902 million fund over four years will be launched for the following eleven Mayoral Strategic Authorities: East Midlands; Greater Lincolnshire; Greater Manchester; Hull and East Yorkshire; Liverpool City Region; North East; South Yorkshire; Tees Valley; West Midlands; West Yorkshire; York and North Yorkshire

The government is also providing financial investments to capitalise a new £500 milion Mayoral Revolving Growth Fund for six mayors in the North and Midlands with an integrated settlement.  This is likely to cover the North East, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Liverpool City Region from 2026‑27, in addition to existing integrated funding commitments to Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.

All Strategic Authorities are required to prepare Local Growth Plans that provide a long-term 10-year strategic framework for growth in their region. They set out ‘agreed priorities’ with Government for where the authority will seek focus its devolved powers and funding to drive productivity and growth. Consultation with stakeholders appears rudimentary and is not required to go down to the community level.  Agreed shared local growth priorities cover areas like transport, innovation and skills, with the South Yorkshire Combined Authority identifying placemaking, investment and communities as a shared investment priority.

The Local Government Association is amongst those calling for those places not currently in a strategic authority area or at the ‘foundation’ stage, to receive greater clarity about how and when they can access the Local Growth Fund.

Our expectation and experience at People & Places, from having served on the West Midlands Mayor’s Town Centre Task Force for 4 years, alongside the new Government’s growth-driven Plan for Change, is not to expect the fine-grain of investment at the community level that has been delivered in some locations through UKSPF.

In addition, the 2025 Budget included confirmation of the creation of a £95 million annual fund to support the domestic fishing sector and coastal communities.

E. Investing in creative industries

Strategic Authorities also seem set to have a leading role in directing investment in creative industries as part of the Government’s newly launched Industrial Strategy. As placemakers, we recommend skipping to the section of the Creative Industries Sector Plan on “unleashing the full potential of our cities and regions”.  This which begins with a commitment to correct an imbalance that sees two-thirds of the value of creative industries concentrated in London and the South East.  The main way that the Government seeks to achieve this is through focusing its efforts in places identified as having high-potential clusters with the greatest projected growth.  These for example, include:

• West Yorkshire: Music, Film&TV, Video Games, Createch, Fashion/Textiles.
• Greater Manchester: Film&TV, Music, Advertising and Market Research.
• West Midlands: Film&TV, Video Games, Createch, Music & Performing Arts, Design

This regional approach includes supporting the growth corridor across Northern city regions through the partnership of northern Mayors and creative leaders in One Creative North, which is backed by all northern Mayors, as a key priority for the newly formed Great North Partnership.

F. Backing ‘Your Everyday Businesses’

July saw the launch of, ‘Backing Your Business‘, the Government’s plan for small and medium businesses,  targeting growth and productivity across the UK and including High Streets or the ‘everyday economy’ as one of its five core policy pillars.

Amongst a re-statement of other recently launched policies grouped under a chapter on High Streets, or the ‘everday economy’, were mention of two seemingly new, spatial solutions:

1. ‘High Streets and Growth Incubators’ aimed apparently at backing high street businesses, redeveloping commercial space and triggering private investment. Initially these will delivered through Mayoral Strategic Authorities in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands.
2. ‘Hospitality and Night-Time Economy Zones’ where it will be easier to receive permissions for alfresco dining, pubs, bars and street parties, apparently. This comes alongside wider changes to planning and licensing rules to make it quicker and easier for new cafes, bars and music venues to open.

This section of the plan also curiously pondered councils needing the capacity and expertise for placemaking; the value of communities driving positive change and animating centres; and a need for businesses to be part of partnerships pulled togeter to improve places.

It will be especially interesting to know more about the type of area considered suitable for ‘hospitality zones’ or ‘growth incubators’, the provision for local stakeholder input in determining them, and how the former, for example, is managed alongside a priority to reduce anti-social behaviour.

The ‘Backing Your Businesses’ plan in many ways reads like a promotional brochure setting the scope for more detailed negotiations between Government and a layer of Strategic Authorities.

G. Targeting neighbourhoods in need

A key focus of the Government’s place-based policies appears to be directly supporting a limited number of neighbourhoods that are judged to be in greatest need. As summarised in our coverage of the announcement of the Pride in Place Programme, a key funding announcement is support for people across the most in-need neighbourhoods, with a 169 areas receiving £2 million every year for a decade, totalling £3.5 billion. This is on top of an existing commitment to 75 areas, costing £1.5 billion, through what have been known as the ‘Planning for Communities’ (aka Long Term Plan for Towns) and the ‘Trailblazer Neighbourhoods’ programme, now referred to as phase 1 of the Pride in Place Programme.

The new tranche of 146 neighbourhoods in England are larger than the original ‘Trailblazers’ and have been selected using data from Index of Multiple Deprivation and the Community Needs Index, aggregated to the Middle Layer Super Output Areas (MSOAs).  These larger neighbourhoods comprise between 2,000 and 6,000 households and usualy have a population of between 5,000 and 15,000 persons. On their own, this second tranche of neighbourhoods represents just over 2% of the total number of MSOAs in England. There are slightly different methodologies for the neighbourhoods selected in Scoltland, Wales and Northeren Ireland. The full list of places selected for both phases of the Pride in Place Programme can be found at the bottom of this methodology note.

There seems a very strong read-across from the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods’ data-driven assessment of need and the selection of these “trailblazers”. ICON’s map of “mission critical neighbourhoods” shows 613 communities in England where Government missions to tackle inequities in economic growth, health, education, exposure to crime and access to clean energy, are most challenging:

• 43% of working age people are on Universal Credit, compared to 17% nationally.
• 33% have no qualifications compared to 18% elsewhere.
• 26% have a long-term health problem compared to 17% nationally

In addition, the Government is supporting the launch of a new £175m Community Wealth Fund (CWF) managed by the National Lottery Community Fund, the delivery body for the CWF. The Fund will give between £1 million and £2.5 million over ten years directly to communities to spend on what they identify as most needed in their local area, such as after-school clubs, employment support, community facilities and improvements to the look and feel of the neighbourhood. This funding will be backed up by wrap-around support to develop local confidence and capacity.

The Goverment has also pledged to establish a Network for Neighbourhoods across the UK, with the Pride in Place Programme at its heart, to build connection and learning between community leaders and embed participatory approaches in how local decisions are made.

H. Localising health services and prevention

Fit for the Future is the NHS and Government’s 10 Year Health Plan for England published in July 2025.  In its chapter on proposals for a Neighbourhood Health Service, the plan portrays an NHS detached from communities that organises its care into multiple, fragmented siloes. Instead, it proposes the alternative of the neighbourhood health service that will bring care into local communities, convene professionals into patient-centred teams and end fragmentation.

There will be a shift in investment over the next 3 to 4 years as local areas build and expand their neighbourhood health services.  This aims to ensure that neighbourhood teams will have the necessary equipment, working space and technology by establishing a Neighbourhood Health Centre (NHC) in every community.  This will begin with the places where healthy life expectancy is lowest and will seek to maximise value for money by repurposing poorly used, existing NHS and public sector properties.

The 2025 Budget confirmed plans for the delivery of 250 new Neighbourhood Health Centres, with 120 operational by 2030, through the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme (public sector investment and Public-Private Partnership).

The NHS appear to define neighbourhoods on a much larger scale than elsewhere within government, with ‘single neighbourhood providers’ delivering services over single neighbourhood (c 50,000 people) and ‘multi neighbourhood providers’ (250,000 people) working across several different neighbourhoods.

The Government says it is committed to a place-based approach to physical activity across government departments: through £250 million of investment into 100 places by Sport England; new partnerships on school sport, and local health plans. The Department of Culture Media and Sports says that it will set out more detail on the strategy for physical activity in due course.

In the 2025 Budget, the Government announced an investment of £18 million over two years in up to 200 playgrounds across England. The announcement comes of yhe back of research that shows that children in more deprived communities often have significantly fewer places to play, with major gaps in access, quality and inclusion. Play England commented that the commitment is an important shift in recognising the role of play in children’s health and wellbeing.

From a different perspective, the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has recently published its report Streets Ahead that includes research and guidance on “building health on the high street”. RSPH research demonstrates that the 10 building blocks of a healthy high street are community empowerment, transport links, inclusive design, safety, good quality retail, social spaces, health services, healthy food, green spaces and supportive work. They set-out how to positively influence the health of people who visit high streets in ways that will also help communities thrive. Chief amongst their calls are proposals for less fragmented system of coordinated delivery with a strong leadership, clear accountability and long-term funding could help improve the health on the high street.

I. Creating a new neighbourhood governance system

Towards the end of the Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill there is an intriguing commitment to “introduce a requirement on all local authorities, in England, to establish effective neighbourhood governance.”

There is mention of an intent that “Before those regulations are made, government will be undertaking a review as to the best way to achieve the aims including speaking to the sector to ensure they have the opportunity to contribute and share existing good practice.”

There is then an intriguing and ominous paragraph that suggests town and parish councils might be effectively sidelined: “Local authorities can still set up town and parish councils, and town and parish councils which exist now can continue. Our guidance will say how neighbourhood governance structures can work well with town and parish councils. Town and parish councils are independent of local authorities. We want to make sure that all local authorities have a way of working with people in their neighbourhoods, so they are not relying on town and parish councils to do it.”

This seems a short statement that could represent a big change.  It is something we will be tracking with much interest as part of our involvement on an Institute of Place Management roundtable on devolution and to consider how it sits alongside our own recommendations and good practice guidance on developing place partnerships.

The 2025 Budget included the announcement of the piloting Place-based Budgets with five Mayoral Strategic Authorities to apparently test how pooling public service budgets could break down siloes and deliver better outcomes.

J. Sharing the roles of civil society and government

In a busy July 2025, the Department of Culture, Media and Sports published guidance on what it called a new Civil Society Covenant. The Covenant is described as seeking to create an environment in which civil society is respected, supported and listened to by government and the shared roles in serving the public are recognised.

Civil society includes charities, social enterprises, co-operatives, trade unions, faith organisations, informal community groups, philanthropists and social investors. The principles in the Covenant apply to government and public bodies across the UK including: UK government departments; strategic authorities and English local authorities; wider public sector bodies including NHS organisations and partnerships.

The Covenant aims to underpin a partnership between government and civil society in a way that complements the representative democracy of elected local authorities and includes:

• resilient, connected and empowered communities with inclusive opportunities for participation which strengthen our social fabric
• invigorated decision making which embraces civil society’s insight, expertise and constructive challenge
• a strong democracy where all people can participate and where all voices are heard

K. Offering fairer Business Rates for High Streets

At the Autumn Budget 2024, the Government announced its first steps to reform the business rates system, which it is branding as fairer for High Streets. The 2025 Autumn Budget confirmed these first reforms. From April 2026, a new five-category multiplier structure will apply. Crucially, it introduces a clear distinction between Retail, Hospitality and Leisure (RHL) properties and all other commercial properties, as well as a new band for high-value premises.

The new categories (with 2026/7 multipliers in brackets) are:

1. Small Business Multiplier – non-RHL properties with a rateable value under £51,000.00 (43.2p)
2. Small Business RHL Multiplier – RHL properties under £51,000.00 (38.2p)
3. Standard Multiplier – non-RHL properties £51,000.00–£499,999.99 (48.0p)
4. Standard RHL Multiplier – RHL properties £51,000.00–£499,999.99 (43.0p)
5. High-Value Multiplier – all properties £500,000.00 and above (50.8p)

The changes come in at the same time as a new revaluation of business rates and accompanying transitional relief.

The Government also consulted on ‘Reset’ proposals to determine the mechanism for how Business Rates income and growth will be retained and redistributed in different local authority areas from 2026-27, to better balance need and opportunity.  The 2025 Budget confirmed the following arrangements for Business Rates Retention (BRR) Schemes.

• BRR Extension: The Greater London Authority enhanced BRR arrangements and the 100% pilots in Cornwall, the West of England, and Liverpool City Region will be extended for a further three years, to 2028-29.
• Leeds City Fund (BRR zone): Subject to a business case, a BRR zone will be established in Leeds city centre, allowing Leeds City Council to retain 100% of business rates growth above an agreed baseline for 25 years.
• Wider BRR Zones: The government is seeking to improve the BRR system to better support Mayoral Strategic Authorities, considering options like allocating a direct share of business rates and establishing BRR zones based on set criteria.

L. Easing travel to town

Coming down to a practical level, increasing the ways people can travel to town and easing the journey can be an important part of increasing footfall. Broadly the 2025 Spending Review confirmed a boost for sustainable forms of transport that provide opportunities for a modal shift

The Government has significantly increased funding support for local transport by committing to provide £15.6 billion through the Transport for City Regions settlements by 2031-32 for, yes you’ve guessed it, the Mayoral Strategic Authorities mainly in the Midlands and North, though including the West of England. This will enable investment in their local transport priorities, including zero emission buses, trams and local rail. Other areas will be eligible for a share of the £2.3 billion Local Transport Grant for improvements including bus lanes, cycleways and congestion improvement measures.

The Spending Review confirmed a welcomed boost to walking and cycling with a £616 million settlement for Active Travel England for the period 2026 to 2030. This still leaves local authorities and partners looking for other sources of funding including developer contributions, to deliver priorities agreed in Local Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Plans.

Another area of travel policy to watch is the Government’s stated intent to develop an Integrated National Transport Strategy for England. The strategy will address the need for a seamless journey experience across different transport modes, including rail, road, bus, active travel and emerging mobility services. 

One of the leading areas to watch in terms of improving integrated transport is Greater Manchester through its yellow-liveried Bee Network, which in January 2025 became the first area outside London to bring all local bus services under local control in almost 40 years. The aim is that the Bee Network will become a ‘one-stop-shop’ for local journeys by creating the U.K.’s largest active travel network and bringing eight local commuter train services into its operation.

Other Combined Authorities are set to take control of their bus services through what is known as franchising schemes, including Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. The introduction of such local control will:

• Make more efficient use of available public resource by enabling cross-subsidy between commercial and non-commercial services -rather than operators making a separate profit from both
• Create one network, one fare, one brand, one responsible body
• Enable enforceable standards for performance, cleanliness, reliability etc. up to and including sacking the operator

Another policy initiative that may impact on travel towns is the proposed introduction Parking Code of Practice aimed at creating standards for the management of private car parks that are likely to cover issues including standards in relation to signage, periods of grace, the handling of complaints and the levels at which parking charges and debt recovery fees should be capped.  This might typically effect how supermarket car parks in town centres are managed.

The 2025 Budget included announcements to support the roll-out of electric vehicle chargepoints including funding of £100 million to help local authorities boost their capability to accelerate the installation.

M. Tackling street crime

The new Crime and Policing Bill has a very broad scope which the government says supports the delivery of its ‘safer streets’ mission.  This includes targets to halve knife crime and violence against women and girls in a decade, and ‘transform neighbourhood policing’. Through the Bill the Government has committed to tackle anti-social behaviour by employing the following measures:

• Introducing respect orders to better enable police and others to tackle persistent antisocial behaviour
• Developing a specific offence of assaulting a retail worker
• Repealing legislation which downgraded the police response to so-called low value shop theft
• Increasing the maximum penalties for offences relating to the sale of weapons whilst introducing a new offence of possessing a bladed article with intent to use unlawful violence

The government has set out its priorities on neighbourhood policing and town centre crime in its ‘safer streets mission’.  This includes a “neighbourhood policing guarantee” that “each neighbourhood will have named, contactable officers to tackle the issues facing their communities, helping to restore trust that policing is working to keep people safe and meaning no community feels ignored when they need help.” The will include “dedicated teams who will spend their time on the beat with guaranteed police patrols in town centres and other hotspot areas at peak times such as Friday and Saturday nights” as well as a dedicated ASB lead in every force, to develop tailored action plans for every community.

The 2025 Budget confirmed funding for establishing a High Streets Illegality Taskforce as a dedicated cross-government taskforce to develop an intelligence-led understanding of organised crime in high streets and disrupt money laundering.

N. Putting underutilised high street properties to new uses

Here we summarise two different initiatives that can put underutilised high street properties to new uses.  And, finally, after all this analysis of the relationship between Government policy and cities, towns and neighbourhoods, an initiative that has ‘High Streets’ in its name!

1. High Street Rental Auctions:  Under this scheme, local authorities can take action where landlords have not taken sufficient steps to rent property –auctioning-off leases on premises that have been vacant for more than a year –and granting local businesses and community groups the ‘right to rent’ such empty buildings.  Eleven councils are now piloting the High Street Rental Auctions schem as Early Adopters, and benefit from resources to contribute to additional costs including the refurbishment of the properties. Our hope is that the scheme is more benefitial as a stick that produces the carrot of local place partnerships focusing on a proactive approach to re-letting empty properties as set out in this guide to Tackling High Street Vacancy, published by the High Streets Task Force.
2. Community Right to Buy:  This new ‘right’ offers community groups the right of first refusal on the sale of assets of community value. This is backed by an extended period delaying any sales other than to the community group for 12 months. As seasoned camapigners have been quick to point out, the new Right to Buy currently comes without a government funding commitment to assist with purchasing assets. The prospect is that devolved strategic authorities might be partly directed to do so, alongside other fundraising options such as crowdfunding  or opportunities that arise through organisations such as the Architectural Heritage Fund. As our etailed guide to “Getting ready for a Right to Buy” demonstrates, raising funds for the purchase, is just one of five key steps in a rigorous process for acquiring and operating community assets.

O. Celebrating our communities and heritage

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport launched a new £85 million Creative Foundations Fund with the Arts Council England in summer 2025.  This support arts and cultural organisations in England to revitalise, restore, retrofit or renew cultural assets, including urgent work which prevents organisations from effectively delivering work for the public.  The short application window has now closed.

A seperate Heritage Revival Fund was launched earlier in the year in conjunction with the Architectural Heritage Fund.  Its purpose is to help rescue and repurpose neglected historic buildings in England, enabling community organisations, charities and social enterprises to take ownership and repurpose sites such as theatres, department stores and former banks. In addition Heritage at Risk Capital Fund was a special 1-year, £15 million fund managed by Historic England to enable the rescue of at-risk historic sites and buildings that bring people together ndividuals and organisations in the most deprived neighbourhoods in England.

P.  Proposed Visitor Levy

The Government is proposing that Mayors in England be given powers to raise a visitor levy on overnight accommodation, with an option to extend this power to other strategic authority leaders.  A consultation on the design of the new scheme is open for comments until February 18th, 2026.

Q. Immediate Impact Fund for Spaces and Places

As part of its Pride in Place Strategy, the Government has announced that 95 local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales will each recieve £1.5 million for investing in spaces and places over 18 months. The funding to support the development of shared spaces, revitalise local high streets and improve public spaces, needs to targeted in one or more of three possible ways:

1. Community spaces: Investing in community facilities by refurbishing or taking ownership of underused but valued buildings to create welcoming places for connection, support and shared activity.
2. Public spaces: Enhancing the physical environment by improvements to green areas, play and leisure facilities, and thoughtful design features such as seating, signage and public art to make spaces more inclusive and inviting.
3. High street and town centre revitalisation: Revitalising high streets by improvements to buildings, streets and public spaces to increase footfall, help small businesses thrive and create opportunities for social and cultural activity.

There is no requirement for local authorities to meet all of the objectives for investing in spaces and places or spend a specific percentage of funding on any objective. One building in one community could absorb all the cash, or access improvements could be spread across a range of places.

A place partnership process matching plans & policies

We recommend that this analysis of national policy relating to place, is applied to specific cities, towns or neighbourhoods alongside the use the Revitalising Town Centres Toolkit prepared by People & Places for the LGA on plan preparation and delivery, and our new guidance on creating a place partnership behind a plan. The new guidance covers details about the six steps to establishing and operating a place partnership:

1. Foundations -the underlying evidence and objectives
2. Function -the purpose is the partnership seeking to achieve
3. Form -how the partnership best organised to make an impact
4. Folk -the ways key individuals and stakeholders involved in the partnership
5. Finances -how the partnership maintains its activities financially
6. Forward Planning -the ways partnership progress is routinely reviewed & written-down

In applying national policies, it will be important that the foundations of evidenced based analysis of issues is in place, that influencing policy is recognised as part of the purpose and way of working of a partnership under function and form, and that the right groups are around the table to join-up the application of policies.  As has been apparent throughout the analysis of national policy, clear communications and good relations with key contacts at the strategic authority level are key.  This may well be best channelled through a new or existing unitary council, though specialist agencies such as Historic England may be helpful too.  As a place partnership it will be important to gain recognition for the value offered to these different layers of more strategic public governance, the value offered by having a joined-up understanding and ability to delivery locally.

It will be important to adapt proposals for place partnerships as more becomes known about the Government’s commitment in the Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill to introduce a requirement on all local authorities to establish effective neighbourhood governance.

Further reading

Read our new detailed blog on ‘Boosting Pride in Place‘ that shares 10 tried and tested steps towards giving local people a central role in helping public spaces, neighbourhoods and towns to blossom.

Also, look out for our Director, Chris Wade’s forthcoming viewpoint article in the Journal of Place Management and Development, written with Graham Galpin, about takimg a pluralistic approach to local governance, post devolution.