No Short Cuts: Towards a National Strategy for Neighbourhood Recovery
Over the course of the last year, the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods has identified the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods in England. On our visits to these neighbourhoods, we have listened to residents about their hopes and aspirations. We have commissioned and undertaken ground-breaking research. We have consulted widely with hundreds of communities, academics, charities, foundations and other experts and we are grateful for their time and support.
Our conclusion is simple. The number of disadvantaged neighbourhoods is too large. The causes may have been deindustrialisation and social dislocation, but the reason they have persisted for decades is the lack of large scale, concerted, long-term national effort to help them.
This is not because of a lack of willingness within these neighbourhoods to improve their areas. We have seen from our visits that residents want to be given the tools to put their neighbourhoods back on the road to recovery. When communities, government, business, faith groups and civil society come together there is a real chance of change, as they work together to ensure no place is left behind.
The cost of disadvantaged neighbourhoods is vast not only in terms of higher welfare expenditure and loss economic output, but the demoralisation caused through wasted opportunity for hundreds of thousands of people. The country needs a new spirit of neighbourhood recovery, akin to the effort we
took to rebuild the country after the war.
Our report, No Short Cuts, sets out what that should look like.
Read No Short Cuts here
