The research team – Gavin Parker, Matthew Wargent, John Sturzaker and Tessa Lynn – penned a short response to the recently launched ‘Plan for Neighbourhoods’ asking how people will actually be involved… Read it by clicking the link below
Think Neighbourhoods, ICONs interim report
The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods has worked with Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OSCI) to identify which neighbourhoods are most at risk of not achieving the government’s missions.
In this report ICON explores attitudes in these neighbourhoods through polling done by Public First, arguing that a targeted approach is needed to improve disadvantaged neighbourhourhoods and achieve national renewal.
The report can be found here:
Frontier Economics – The Evidence for Neighbourhood Focused Regeneration
A publication published in March 2025 by ICON combines the findings from the reviews that answers the following questions:
1. How should a neighbourhood and a neighbourhood intervention be defined?
2. Why do neighbourhoods matter?
3. How do people experience living in the most deprived neighbourhoods?
4. What are the interventions and/or delivery mechanisms that have had most social and economic impact at the neighbourhood level?
5. What does this mean for building an effective neighbourhood policy both nationally and at regional and local authority levels?
You can access there report here.
Launched in September 2024, the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods will review the current state of neighbourhoods across England.
You can find out more here – Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods
Planning reforms – Planning and Infrastructure Bill 2025
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which was introduced to Parliament on the 11th March 2025 introduces measures in an attempt to speed up planning decisions to boost housebuilding and the delivery of vital developments like roads, railway lines and windfarms. The government aims to l boost economic growth, connectivity and energy security whilst also delivering for the environment, with this new Bill.
‘Biggest building boom’ in a generation through planning reforms – GOV.UK
Plan for neighbourhoods – March 2025
This week, the Government issued its Plan for Neighbourhoods, a prospectus for tackling longstanding issues in some of the UK’s most deprived areas. The plan promises up to £20 million for each of the selected 75 neighbourhoods. This amounts to a significant injection of funds designed to rejuvenate physical infrastructure, repair fractured and mistrustful communities, and drive economic growth.
Overall, the plan is a welcome one. It promises significant investment totalling £1.5 billion over a 10-year timeframe. It also signals a welcome return to supporting the country’s most deprived communities, moving away from the sink-or-swim vision of localism witnessed since 2010.
