There have been a lot of well-intentioned place-based initiatives over the years which many of us have tried to deliver on the ground: Urban Programme, European Regional Development Fund, City Challenge, Single Regeneration Budget, Public Service Agreements, Total Place, Health Action Zones, Better Care Fund, Levelling Up, Integrated Care Systems etc etc… All operating as individual initiatives in a strategic vacuum.

Centrally designed, time limited programmes with pots of funding to address silo aspects of lives: and therein lies the problem, they are partial, emanating from different government departments they don’t connect around places, neighbourhoods, communities, families, people and the reality of their lives.