Pride in Place: funding gaps and capacity challenges

The UK is marked by deep and persistent spatial inequalities. While deprivation is widespread, it is disproportionately concentrated in ex-industrial towns, coastal areas and some inner-city neighbourhoods, driven by a combination of factors including weak labour markets and high housing costs. Where you live can shape both your income and also your ability to feel economically secure, withstand shocks and unexpected setbacks.

Amplifying the impact of disadvantage, neighbourhoods with both high socio-economic deprivation and weaker social infrastructure (community spaces, activities, services and everyday local connections) are referred to as doubly disadvantaged. Social infrastructure is not just about tangible local places, it also means the community activities taking place within them, and the intangible social bonds created as a consequence; from catching up with volunteers at a community gardening session, taking part in a free group fitness class in a park, or simply chatting to other parents at a weekend sports club.

In deprived neighbourhoods where these kinds of spaces, activities and connections are lacking, residents face not only material hardship but also have fewer community assets, weaker networks, and more limited access to localised support.

The Government aims to tackle this problem with their Pride in Place Programme (PiPP), allocating up to £5 billion to 146 doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods across England, over the next decade. The Government is right to prioritise social infrastructure as a foundation for economic security. However, the extent to which current funding aligns with the geography and intensity of need remains an open question.

The following technical analysis examines how doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods are distributed across England. It also assesses how PiPP funding allocations align with, and diverge from, patterns of concentrated need, highlighting critical funding gaps. Finally, it considers whether funded neighbourhoods have the foundations for community-led delivery, by dissecting the dimensions of strong social infrastructure to focus on levels of community activation, participation and engagement.

Capturing community need beyond deprivation

Deprivation and community need are closely linked, but they are distinct. The English Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) is a widely used indicator of relative disadvantage across hyperlocal areas. The IMD combines 7 domains (income, employment, health, education, crime, housing, and living environment) to provide an understanding of spatial inequalities across the country. While the domains of the IMD create a good picture of what life is like in a place, they do not account for the quality and availability of social infrastructure.

Estimating social infrastructure at a hyperlocal level means making use of the 2023 Community Needs Index (CNI). The CNI captures access to services, the quality and quantity of civic assets, and levels of civic participation at a neighbourhood level, offering insight into how well the social infrastructure within communities is equipped to support residents.

Figure 1 shows a clear relationship between the IMD and the CNI: areas with high deprivation often have high community needs. At the same time, there are notable exceptions. Some neighbourhoods have relatively low IMD scores but high CNI scores, and vice versa. This highlights that deprivation alone does not capture all aspects of need. Looking at both measures together provides a more complete understanding of where policy interventions to support strong, resilient and integrated communities are most essential in neighbourhoods with disproportionate levels of need.

To better understand the drivers and dynamics that lead to economic insecurity through a place-based lens, we combine measures of socio-economic deprivation and weak social infrastructure to characterise neighbourhoods. We classify the top 10% of areas in this ranking as doubly disadvantaged, representing the places with the greatest combined deprivation and community need. The Government also followed this methodology for allocating Pride in Place Phase 2 funding (see Appendix 1). In doing so, the programme sought to identify the places where investment in social infrastructure could drastically improve the lives of local communities.

Why social infrastructure matters

Those who live in doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods are exposed to a greater range of factors that increase their risk of economic insecurity, with consequences extending beyond just low incomes, to affecting people’s social connections, wellbeing and resilience. Our analysis shows a positive association between social infrastructure and fewer risk factors associated with economic insecurity.

Even in areas with similarly high levels of deprivation, more social infrastructure is associated with fewer of these risk factors. Comparing outcomes across equally deprived areas — and controlling for different types of labour market and age structures — those with the strongest social infrastructure show far better outcomes:

• the prevalence of insecure work was 5 percentage points lower
• rates of people who reported fair, bad or very bad health were 5 percentage points lower
• rates of people who held a degree were 10 percentage points higher
• rates of people with a disability were 6 percentage points lower
• rates of people with unpaid caring responsibilities were 2 percentage points lower.¹

Living in a deprived area with strong social infrastructure is associated with fewer risk factors related to material hardship and insecurity. The inverse is also true for equally deprived places with weaker social infrastructure where risk factors are more prevalent. In such places, risk factors associated with economic insecurity and weak social infrastructure compound, making it even harder for people to be resilient to life’s challenges and get back on their feet after an unexpected setback.

The breadth and depth of doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods across England means millions of people are facing greater risks with fewer community spaces, activities, and connections to turn to for support.

Mapping double disadvantage in England

Using our definition and 10% threshold, we classify a total of 686 doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods which covers 5,700,000 people — around 10% of the population in England (neighbourhoods in other nations were announced later, use a different methodology, and are not included in this analysis).

These neighbourhoods are commonplace and can be found in all 9 English regions (see Appendix 2 for neighbourhood definition). They are present in half (153 of 309) of England’s local authorities. Similarly, 45% (245 of 543) of English parliamentary constituencies contain at least 1 of these neighbourhoods. A full list of our doubly disadvantaged areas, their rankings and supporting information can be found below.

The highest number of doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods is in the North West, where 179 neighbourhoods (19% of the region’s total) can be found. These places are located in post-industrial areas around Blackpool and Knowsley, as well as neighbourhoods in major urban centres such as Liverpool and Manchester. Strong clustering is also seen in Yorkshire and the Humber and the North East, where over 20% of each region’s neighbourhoods are doubly disadvantaged.

As shown in Table 1, doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods can be found in all 9 English regions, with the North West containing the largest number.

Source: JRF analysis of MHCLG, 2019 IMD; OCSI, English CNI 2023; MHCLG PiPP methodological notes. 
Note: Population estimates come from population denominators included in the 2019 IMD file 7.

Here, the impact is particularly pronounced in coastal and former industrial areas with weaker labour markets. The East of England and Midlands regions show moderate concentrations (around 10%), mainly in large urban and post-industrial local authorities. Regions in the South have comparatively small proportions of doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods (5% or less). London has very few doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods, reflecting stronger social infrastructure concentrated in the capital.

When considering parliamentary constituencies, rather than local authorities, some stand out as urgently needing investment and support. These include Clacton in Tendring, where 91% of its neighbourhoods (10 of 11) can be categorised as doubly disadvantaged, followed by Hartlepool (73%), Great Yarmouth (69%), Liverpool Walton (67%), Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (67%), and Knowsley (64%).

These patterns demonstrate that doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods are geographically widespread, cutting across urban, coastal, rural, and post-industrial areas. Because of this spread, the strength of this measure lies in its ability to capture the ways in which material deprivation and social infrastructure both underpin economic in/security, providing a fuller understanding of how social and economic dynamics and drivers overlay with place to create distinct local challenges.

How Pride in Place funding is targeted and distributed

The Government’s Pride in Place Programme is a flagship regeneration policy, backed by up to £5 billion so far, which will support hundreds of neighbourhoods across the UK with £20 million each (see Appendix 1). Decision making in each selected community is led by a Neighbourhood Board, including residents, the local MP, the council, businesses, and community organisations.

Having identified neighbourhoods with some of the highest levels of deprivation and lowest levels of social infrastructure across England, PiPP aims to direct a decade of investment into community-led neighbourhood renewal. For our analysis, we have applied the Government’s methodology to identify which doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods have not received funding, ensuring consistency with the approach used to allocate PiPP resources.

In England, Phase 2 funding has been allocated using a methodology based on the combined IMD-CNI measure described above. To date, 146 of the highest-ranked neighbourhoods have been selected based on their level of combined need, while also excluding places already benefiting from earlier Phase 1 town-level funding. However, allocation was not determined by need alone. To ensure broader geographic coverage, funding was capped at the highest-ranking neighbourhood in any one constituency.

Who misses out

Across England’s 686 doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods, 146 (21%) have been allocated PiPP Phase 2 funding, covering roughly 1.2 million people. Another 110 neighbourhoods (16%) are not directly funded under this phase but are associated with towns that received Phase 1 funding, meaning they benefit from earlier allocations. However, the 2 phases differ in how tightly they are targeted.

Phase 2 is directed at local neighbourhoods within towns and so encompasses much smaller populations (between 5,000 to 15,000 people). By contrast, Phase 1 distributed a similar allocation (£20 million) across a broader set of towns with larger populations (between 5,000 and 75,000 people). This leaves 430 neighbourhoods (62%), home to approximately 3.5 million people, without any dedicated funding, despite being among the places with the highest levels of combined deprivation and community need in the country.

Across every region, fewer than half of all doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods have received Phase 1 or 2 funding, meaning the majority remain unsupported. Overall, roughly one-third to nearly half of doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods in each region have received support.

Funding has not been spread equally across the regions, the highest coverage is seen in the South East (22 of 46 neighbourhoods, 48%), the East Midlands (25 of 55, 46%), and London (2 of 5, 46%). By contrast, the South West (12 of 38, 32%), North East (27 of 79, 34%), and North West (63 of 179, 35%) have the lowest proportions funded. Notably, the North West has the largest number of doubly disadvantage neighbourhoods overall, yet only around a third of these have received funding, highlighting significant gaps in support.

These patterns suggest that, while some regions seem relatively well covered, the one neighbourhood per constituency approach means that constituencies with only a few highly ranking neighbourhoods are better served. In contrast, constituencies with many doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods see a lower share funded, leaving large concentrations of need unaddressed and indicating areas where any future investment could better prioritise.

To make this clearer, it helps to zoom in on a few specific examples. In Blackpool South only ‘Little Layton and Little Carleton’ (ranked 2nd on the combined index) received funding, leaving 9 other high-ranking doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods, including South Promenade and Seasiders Way (ranked 5th), without support.

While some benefits may spill over into neighbouring Middle Super Output Areas (MSOAs), this is not guaranteed as in many cases, such as the Blackpool South example, the boundaries between funded and unfunded high-need places are not coterminous. As these areas are not funded directly, there is no requirement for Boards to engage their residents, who will likely be excluded from shaping decisions about local priorities and resources allocation.

Similarly, Twerton, in the Bath and North East Somerset constituency, is ranked 408th on the combined index, placing it well below the top 10% of most doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Despite this, it still received funding as it ranked the highest in its constituency. In contrast 3 doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods which boarder it, with higher rankings, but in the Bristol South constituency: Withywood (ranked 27th), High Ridge (97th), and Knowle West (185th), did not receive support.

This example underlines the consequences of the 1 neighbourhood per constituency funding restrictions. As a result, allocation is shaped not by the intensity of need, but by constituency boundaries and political calculations. In practice, this means that many high-need neighbourhoods across the country have been excluded, simply because they were outranked by another area within the same constituency.

The PiPP funding formula’s emphasis on spreading investment across constituencies has left pockets of high need, both within individual constituencies and across neighbouring areas. This structural trade-off between geographic breadth and targeting the communities where support is most pressing, risks undermining the Government’s promise to ‘target neighbourhoods that have been overlooked and left behind’.

From funding gaps to potential delivery challenges

There is potential for tensions to also arise when we consider how the nature of high deprivation and weaker social infrastructure shape the practical realities of PiPP delivery. Funded neighbourhoods face particularly tight timetables to deliver the programme’s ambition of putting communities in the driving seat. With Boards to be fully established by July 2026 and full plans due by November 2026, these areas must undertake deep, inclusive, community engagement work in less than a year — a timeline that is especially challenging in places with weaker social infrastructure.

The scale of this challenge is highlighted by the CNI dimension of ‘Engaged and active communities’, which captures levels of third sector, civic, and community activity, as well as barriers to participation. It indicates whether charities are active locally and whether residents are engaged in broader civic life; the very social infrastructure needed for community-led neighbourhood renewal.

Figure 8 shows that, compared to other doubly disadvantaged places, the median score for this dimension is highest for places that will receive Phase 2 funding. To make them more comparable, scores have been rescaled to a 0–100 scale, where 0 represents the neighbourhood with the strongest active and engaged community, and 100 the weakest. This allows for comparing neighbourhoods on the same scale, identifying areas facing the biggest challenges, and highlighting Phase 2 PiPP neighbourhoods in need of extra support to build local capacity.

Across England, the average score is 25/100, rising to 51 in doubly disadvantaged areas and 58 in Phase 2 neighbourhoods, with 22% of these scoring above 75.

Some of the funded neighbourhoods scoring highly on this dimension include Orchard Park, Brinnington, Southcotes East, and Bentilee and Ubberley. These areas may need additional support to successfully establish Neighbourhood Boards, identify or build community anchors and rally local people to engage with the programme.

Without targeted investment in community development and capacity building support, moving too quickly risks overloading existing local assets, undermining engagement, and eroding trust — a guaranteed way to weaken the very foundations that the policy aims to strengthen.

Conclusion

The combined double disadvantage measure provides a robust, nationwide picture of neighbourhood need, capturing deprivation and levels of social infrastructure across regions and types of communities. While Pride in Place targets many high-need areas, the funding formula means some of the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods have been left out. For those with funding, weaker social infrastructure and rapid delivery timelines may lead to challenges when turning ambition into reality.