Blog- Friday, 14th March 2025, Trowers & Hamlins LLP, Corporate Partner

Plan for Neighbourhoods – thoughts from Chris Plumley, Public Sector Real Estate Partner at Trowers & Hamlins LLP

Local authorities being at the heart of regeneration, growth and renewal is nothing new.  I've been working with councils for over 25 years delivering development and regeneration projects.  During that time the political and economic climate has always been "challenging".  Whether it's funding, officer resource, land values, construction cost inflation, lending rates - it's been a journey.  Somehow, however, the public sector keeps finding ways to make it work.

In March 2025 the challenges are as challenging as ever.  It is interesting, therefore, that the Government has brought forward its latest growth proposal and funding stream, the Plans for Neighbourhoods.  A £1.5 billion programme to invest in 75 areas with £20m allocated per place.  The fund launch acknowledged that councils and communities have tried to do their best but it needs central government intervention.

Plan for Neighbourhoods is part of the Government’s plan to "level up" but using different language.  The idea is to "revitalise local areas and fight deprivation at root cause by zeroing in on 3 goals: thriving places, stronger communities, and taking back control".  All familiar phrases that resonate with manifesto pledges.  Regeneration has always been about social, physical and economic renewal so, again, familiar territory.

The idea behind local engagement and empowerment isn't new.  In fact we highlighted this in our research study "Rethinking regeneration | Trowers & Hamlins law firm" and it will be key to our latest research https://www.trowers.com/insights/2025/march/ages-and-stages-connecting-uk-homes-with-economic-growth.  There we demonstrated the importance of developers working closely with communities as it massively improves the success factors when delivering new regeneration scheme.  This new Plan seems to codify a lot of that thinking.

One key difference for this fund is that it is not competitive.  This is very important as already overstretched councils should have to waste resource putting bids together.  Instead the creation of a Neighbourhood Board will empower locals and their council to put together a Regeneration Plan setting out their decade long proposals including an Investment Plan for the initial 4 years.  I know from my time advising councils that moving from strategy to implementation can be very hard.  Council need good advice and guidance from officers and professionals to make the most of this type of opportunity. 

This scheme clearly draws inspiration from the New Deal for Communities programme from the last Labour government.  Focus will be on community, long-termism and societal outcomes does mean these Boards will need professional advice, governance and coordination to make them work.  This does seem like a genuine attempt to create a structurally sound and ideologically independent way to bring about long term and investable change.

For council's looking to engage in I have some top tips.

Connect with the public

1. Better communication and engagement is vital to restore the lack of trust between the public and developers.
2. Harness the public’s desire to be more sustainable and to reduce costs to drive the net zero agenda in regeneration.
3. The voices and needs of younger generations must be adequately factored into the development of regeneration schemes.

Policy driven change

4. Greater consistency and implementation of policy and regulation are needed to restore confidence and trust in the planning process.
5. New forms of public private partnerships are needed to overcome the challenge of viability in towns and cities with lower land values.
6. Local Plans provide a vision for a community and certainty for developers but too many local authorities do not have one.

Apply experience to maximise benefits

7. Data – both economic and sentiment – should be more widely utilised to better inform regeneration and development across the country.
8. Strong leadership and long-term accountability are essential to deliver the best outcomes for communities.
9. Ensure regeneration schemes deliver on their commitment to create social, environmental and economic benefit.

Chris Plumley is a partner in the Trowers and Hamlins public sector real estate team.

https://www.trowers.com/people/p/chris-plumley-ckp