Pride in Place

Miatta Fahnbulleh Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Miatta Fahnbulleh)]

On 25 September, the Government announced our plan to restore pride in place.

We are a nation of a thousand neighbourhoods, where our identity, our sense of patriotism and feelings of belonging all depend on what we can see from our doorstep. A decade and a half of under-investment and neglect under the Conservatives has held back too many of our communities and bred a sense of decline. The impact of this has been corrosive. It has divided communities, deprived public institutions of trust and emboldened extremists to attack the foundations of our country.

The causes are not straightforward—austerity, deindustrialisation, an uncritical embrace of globalisation are all a part of it—but what connects it all is a style of government that deprived people of control of their own lives and their surroundings. Pride in place is a new way of governing, and it surpasses anything that has come before.

We will invest up to £5 billion through a new flagship pride in place programme to the 244 places that need it most. In hyper-local communities across England, Scotland and Wales, we will deliver up to £20 million of funding and support to be spent by a local neighbourhood board over the next decade to drive local renewal. A separate pride in place impact fund will deliver a cash injection of £150 million to an additional 95 places, to be spent by the local authority to improve high streets and community spaces.

Investment is being targeted in neighbourhoods with both the highest deprivation levels and weakest social infrastructure, but we are also taking steps to ensure every community has the powers to renew their local area. Our pride in place strategy introduces an action plan of new policies focused on three themes: building stronger communities, creating thriving places and helping communities to take back control of their own lives and areas. As part of this, we have given councils the power to take over the lease of boarded-up shops, creating opportunities for community businesses, and we will go further to establish a new network for neighbourhoods, refresh guidance on using clean-up powers and open a new co-operative development unit within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

When the decline in pride in place so often stems from a “we know best” attitude from those at the top, the answer can only be found in communities themselves. The cure for our problems today is in the pit villages, where hands that once took coal from the ground also built welfare halls for their families to make memories. The cure is in the classrooms, where under crumbling roofs, parents put on after-school clubs and summer fêtes. The cure is Sunday league football grounds, where the next generation support their town with the same passion as they would support their nation in the world cup. This is our alternative to the forces trying to pull us apart. This is our answer to those who feel silenced, ignored and forgotten.

[HCWS967]