Why we are all now on ‘Neighbourhood' Watch

This is Blog no 112

The word ‘neighbourhood’ is back in fashion. Big time.

When the Coalition Government took office in 2010, one of its big ideas was the Big Society. It never made it. But another was ‘neighbourhood planning’. That succeeded far beyond expectation, and in the teeth of much opposition from professional town planners who anticipated much strife and contention over the definition. By 2025, there have been over 1200 Neighbourhood plans, endorsed by local referendums – and the fears have largely disappeared.

Today, however, we have a Government that uses the term ‘neighbourhood’ almost as often as the word ‘Farage’!

• One of Labour’s prominent missions was to reintroduce neighbourhood policing. There was a ‘Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee’ accompanied by an extra 13,000 police officers to bring about ‘safer streets’. It seems that 3,000 have been funded so far – and, sadly, doubts remain about the practicality of achieving the promised numbers.
• The NHS Ten-year plan for England is very focused on neighbourhood services. It is seen as a core element of the long-standing aspiration to shift the emphasis from hospital care to the community. Ministers have identified 43 places to pilot the new structures – based mostly on those areas with lowest life expectancy and greatest health inequalities. We will see them soon.
• In March 2025, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) announced its     UK-wide Plan for Neighbourhoods. It proposed neighbourhood boards in 75 ‘selected’ communities to oversee approx £20m each to help “transform left-behind areas by unleashing their full potential by investing in delivering improved vital community services from education, health and employment to tackling local issues like crime.” £1.5bn funding made this a serious investment.
• On 6^th June, the department published its Guidance document for this fund. Conscious of the particular challenges of community engagement in relation to programmes of this kind, I was struck by two significant paragraphs. They are worth reading.

         “When it comes to communities having more influence over their area, it is important to ensure this is not dominated                by those with the sharpest elbows. We are providing the time, space and funding to avoid under-resourced and

           generic consultation, to ensure Neighbourhood Boards hear from everybody, and include those from marginalised or

          deprived communities who typically may struggle to make their voices heard. These underserved groups include

          those whose socioeconomic circumstances, language or culture mean that they struggle to access ‘usual’ methods

          of engagement. Examples of this might be those experiencing homelessness, without access to the internet, who do

          not speak English or the elderly.

          Community engagement should be iterative, so that people understand how their priorities are reflected in the plan. It

         should happen at regular intervals throughout the course of the programme, as the needs and priorities of

         communities evolve, and reverting to previously engaged groups to set out progress made, how their concerns and

         priorities were accounted for and enable the board to be held accountable for their delivery. Neighbourhood Boards

         should build on existing community engagement structures by mapping social infrastructure already present in their

         community and drawing on that expertise.” 

• Then, quite suddenly on September 25^th, under a new Secretary of State, Steve Read, the word ‘neighbourhoods’ disappears from this high-profile scheme. It has now become the Pride in Place programme with an interesting and strong emphasis on ‘identity.’ It expands the number of recipient communities to 250 at a total cost of £5bn.
• Meanwhile, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill had its Second Reading in the Commons in early September and involves massive redistribution of local government power in England. Many people think that the two-tier structure is well by its sell-by date, and absorbing many into new Strategic authorities is probably the best option. (Whether abolishing umpteen planning authorities at a time when Ministers want to build 1.5m new houses will encourage their co-operation is a question for naïve optimists to ponder!) Obviously it takes power further away from local communities …
• So, enter Clause 58. This is the Bill’s requirement on all local authorities in England (including those not being reorganised) to put in place ‘appropriate arrangements for effective governance of any neighbourhood area’ What precisely these should be has been a matter of considerable debate, and the Bill specifically states that town and parish councils are not to be replaced. But there are lots of options. We have long had area Committees; Residents/Citizens Assemblies are now popular, and one can envisage a range of forums and panels, all with strengths and weaknesses. Regulations will, apparently define ‘neighbourhoods’ for these purposes. Remember that many Town Councils have upwards of 50,000 residents!
• There is currently a Call for Evidence, seeking suggestions for best practice. It’s called a Neighbourhood Governance Review and wants your suggestions by 7^th October.

What to make of this frenetic activity?

The good news is that it must be right to focus on what affects people most directly. In an age where decisions appear to be taken far away – and not necessarily by humans any more, there is abundant evidence that people prefer to relate to the immediate – and want to influence their surroundings and their services. In the background, we have had an Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods under the Chairship of Baroness Armstrong. It’s a shame its comprehensive Green Paper: Delivering Neighbourhood Renewal: Proposals for Change, published in May 2025 has received such little attention. It is part-research report; part-options appraisal and part-consultation – complete with 97 questions in an exercise which should have reported by now, but I can’t find it. It is still a powerful analysis of mission-critical neighbourhoods and should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in local communities.

After a decade or more of neglect, it is surely welcome to see the subject given the  policy-making priority it deserves.

The bad news is that all these initiatives (and there are others e.g. in transport and community energy  etc) appear to be isolated, un-coordinated departmental programmes with little sense of overall coherence. It doesn’t make them wrong, but for local government officers, NHS Managers, planners or businesses, it means negotiating the labyrinthine bureaucracies that run these programmes and making sense of what you can and can’t influence.

For the general public, it must be even worse. Even the best of Whitehall’s efforts to help can sound patronising, and you can’t shout at an MHCLG civil servant. At least you could shout at a Councillor, but for how much longer?  Taking important decision-making further away creates a democratic deficit, and it is good that the Government recognises this and has included the neighbourhood governance provision in its Bill.

As drafted, however, it is weak and suggests Ministers have only the vaguest idea of what they want.

Maybe it is up to those of us with an interest in community engagement and consultation to help them towards effective and democratically-accountable solutions.

Rhion H Jones LL.B

September 2025

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