This week's special episode is a live recording in front of an audience in the newly revamped main gallery at the Building Centre in London. 

My guest is Baroness Hilary Armstrong of Hill Top, Chair of the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods and life-long advocate for communities and regeneration and the conversation explores one of the most important – yet often overlooked – questions in public policy: “how do we reestablish the concept of decent neighbourhoods as a means to renew the country from the ground up?”

Some background: Baroness Armstrong has spent her career at the intersection of politics, policy and community life and today – from her work as a social worker in Sunderland ..to her time as a Cabinet Minister in the last Labour Government shaping the New Deal for Communities. A great platform to talk about what’s gone wrong in the past decade, what can be done now to bring new hope across Britain’s neighbourhoods.

The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods - ICON - is a cross-party initiative dedicated to understanding how neighbourhoods can drive national renewal and in the Spring is set to publish Think Neighbourhoods, its new report in why and how investment and focus on neighbourhoods can revitalise lives across the UK.

And it certainly is a really interesting moment for housing. The government is pressing forward with its target to building 1.5 million new homes and – as we heard on the podcast last week - has just given the thumbs up to the New Towns Taskforce’s plans for 12 communities across the UK. Meanwhile, the post Grenfell fire challenge to build and retrofit homes to be safer, warmer and more carbon efficient, continues to grow.

A tough brief for sure and ICON’s interim report - published last March - makes a compelling case for investment in and focus on neighbourhoods as part of this journey. 

It identifies over 600 ‘mission-critical neighbourhoods’ across the country – places where disadvantage, disconnection and declining social infrastructure are holding people back and calls for a radical shift in how government works, arguing that “thinking big means thinking neighbourhoods.”

“if Britain wants to deliver the government’s missions and rebuild trust in politics,” it says, “it must start by investing in its neighbourhoods.”

Resources

• The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods - ICON
• Baroness Hilary Armstrong of Hill Top
• Interim Report – Think Neighbourhoods
• ICON’s summer progress report
• ICON's lates research on what is happening in England’s neighbourhoods
• The Building Centre, Store Street, London