NHC welcomes Government announcement about new ‘Plan for Neighhourhoods’
The government has recently announced a new ‘Plan for Neighbourhoods’, including a total of £1.5 billion of funding to support the delivery of a wide range of potential interventions in 75 selected neighbourhoods. The interventions cut across several key themes such as housing, employment, transport, health and wellbeing, and education.
Across the North of England, 29 neighbourhoods will be allocated funding worth a total of up to £580 million or 38.9% of the total funding allocation. The funding will be split 75% for capital spend and 25% revenue, with the first project spending released to local authorities from April 2026.
Each neighbourhood will be allocated up to £20 million over ten years and be required to establish a Neighbourhood Board to direct how funding is spent. Neighbourhood Boards will also be required to develop new ‘Regeneration Plans’ for their areas, to be submitted to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. This builds on the Long-term Plan for Towns announced by the previous government, with some additional funding. Selected neighbourhoods have until the 22nd April 2025 to finalise the membership of their Board, nominate a Chair and propose any changes to the boundaries of their ‘neighbourhood’.
The largest change, however, is that this new Plan does give a greater focus to the role of housing within regeneration.
Alongside the Plan, a list of pre-approved interventions was also published. These include:
- Town centre or high street regeneration and public realm improvements
- Resident engagement and consultation on estate regeneration schemes
- Modernisation of social housing stock, including improving home energy efficiency
- Improvements to green spaces and the wider physical environment
- Commissioning and funding homelessness support
- Improvements to make existing homes more resilient to overheating, flooding and other risks
- Supporting the establishment of Community Land Trusts (CLT) to begin delivery of community-led housing initiatives
- Funding for local museums and other cultural or heritage activities or ventures
The Plan hopes to champion local control of funding, with the Neighbourhood Boards being given increased freedom as to how funding is used to ensure it can align with the needs of the specific area. Mayoral Combined Authorities, where they exist, are also expected to play a role in the development of Regeneration Plans.
The prospectus for the Plan also directly references the last Labour government’s ‘New Deal for Communities’ as an influence behind the Plan for Neighbourhoods. The New Deal for Communities previously demonstrated significant success in improving 32 of 36 key headline indicators in the areas where it was present.
At the Northern Housing Consortium, we strongly support this development and the focus government is placing on regeneration.
Our Chief Executive Tracy Harrison said: “We are pleased to see Government prioritise regeneration in the North, with increased investment through the new long-term Plan for Neighbourhoods.
“Building on the previous Long Term Plan for Towns, it goes further by recognising housing as an integral part of regeneration. This is backed up with additional funding and acknowledgement of the importance of addressing homelessness, improving the quality of existing social housing, and referencing estate regeneration.
“We have consistently put forward the case to Government that regeneration must sit alongside investment in new homes to meet the needs of communities – so this is a positive step for the North.
“We are calling on the Government, through the Spending Review, to go further and establish a new funding stream for place-based, housing-led regeneration, which sits alongside a new Affordable Homes Programme with the flexibilities required to support regeneration.”
Alongside making a case for regeneration funding we have advocated more local control of such funding and the end to the ‘competitive funding pot’ model, including through our Pride in Place work.
The full list of Northern areas that will recieve funding is below:
| Neighbourhood | Local authority | Region |
| Blyth | Northumberland | North East |
| Darlington | Darlington | North East |
| Eston | Redcar & Cleveland | North East |
| Hartlepool | Hartlepool | North East |
| Jarrow | South Tyneside | North East |
| Spennymoor | County Durham | North East |
| Washington | Sunderland | North East |
| Accrington | Hyndburn | North West |
| Ashton-under-Lyme | Tameside | North West |
| Burnley | Burnley | North West |
| Chadderton | Oldham | North West |
| Darwen | Blackburn & Darwen | North West |
| Farnworth | Bolton | North West |
| Heywood | Rochdale | North West |
| Kirkby | Knowsley | North West |
| Leigh | Wigan | North West |
| Nelson | Pendle | North West |
| Newton-le-Willows | St Helens | North West |
| Rawtenstall | Rossendale | North West |
| Runcorn | Halton | North West |
| Barnsley | Barnsley | Yorkshire & Humber |
| Castleford | Wakefield | Yorkshire & Humber |
| Dewsbury | Kirklees | Yorkshire & Humber |
| Doncaster | Doncaster | Yorkshire & Humber |
| Grimsby | North East Lincolnshire | Yorkshire & Humber |
| Keighley | Bradford | Yorkshire & Humber |
| Rotherham | Rotherham | Yorkshire & Humber |
| Scarborough | North Yorkshire | Yorkshire & Humber |
| Scunthorpe | North Lincolnshire | Yorkshire & Humber |
