Community-based regeneration and working in neighbourhoods

Overview

This theme builds on work that JRF has carried out over the last two decades. Between 1992 and 2006 JRF ran three major programmes examining community- based regeneration and the different roles played in it by communities, local authorities and their partners, regions and national governments. The focus has consistently been on deprived communities and on the techniques and resources that work best in ensuring that residents and community bodies, alongside other partners, can play a robust and enduring role in regeneration work.

Key issues

• The impact of the recession and austerity measures on the UK’s poorest communities
• How regeneration, building and managing new communities, neighbourhood based services, co-production and community empowerment are faring in the current political and economic contexts
• How new policies such as localism and Big Society are playing out on the ground in localities and communities

What we are doing

• In 2012, JRF completed its report Working in neighbourhoods, active citizenship and localism about Bradford Metropolitan District Council’s work with communities across the whole District. Themes included: active citizens; how residents get involved in neighbourhood work; the role of councillors; what the voluntary sector can do; and the part played by a range of statutory service agencies
• Also in 2012, JRF published work on how local government can build sustainable urban neighbourhoods. Based on an English network of professionals all developing new communities, it focused on design, environmental and social sustainability, community empowerment, stewardship, financial realities, and regeneration.
• Annette Hastings and colleagues at the University of Glasgow are currently engaged in a large national project which examines how public spending cuts impact both on people experiencing poverty and on deprived neighbourhoods. A preliminary report in 2012 outlined how the early rounds of spending cuts had a greater impact in deprived areas than they did in more affluent areas. The current phase of the project analyses national data on spending cuts as well as drilling deeper in four case study localities (three in England and one in Scotland) in order to analyse how spending cuts work through at city and neighbourhood level. An interim report will be published by the end of 2013, and the final report is due at the end of 2014.
• This theme also links with JRF's work on Community Assets, Poverty and Place, and Communities in Recession.