New work pic for my @localtrust.org.uk #bio: Local Trust, which supports the Big Local programme, is closing as 150 areas across England finish NLCF grant funding after 15 years. Looking for #newjob #research #communites #socialchange #housing #displacement #regeneration #vsInequality #Empowerment

🚨Today's blog post is on the new exhibition 'Building "Homes for Tomorrow": Lambeth’s Council Housing of 1965 to 1980' at @lambetharchives.bsky.social. The images below (a nursery school and a housing scheme for elderly people) capture the era's ideals. municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2025/09/09/b...

"Berkeley Homes are threatening to destroy the heart of Peckham and its community by demolishing the Aylesham Centre and turning it into luxury flats with just 50 social homes out of 867 new properties." And, as usual, those 50 social homes are likely to disappear.

The average rent across the UK has reached an all-time high, with the typical advertised rent hitting £1,577 per calendar month (pcm) in August. In London, this average climbed to £2,699, according to Rightmove uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/high-re...

www.london.ac.uk/london-resea... #CitizenScience #communityresearch

Before lunch at #VSVR2025 New Researchers Day, we heard: 🗳️ Sue Ansarie @sueansarie.bsky.social on Big Local volunteers 🔍 Thérèse Gaqua on associations & social action 🤝 Linda Cole @lindarcole.bsky.social on co-producing research with disabled volunteers @bayesbschool.bsky.social

A serious problem in a lot of newish build flats. We have quite a few cases ongoing of excessive heat to tenants and leaseholders' flats. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Responding to the flurry of media coverage of crap housebuilding, why not give communities the chance to be partners in placemaking and stewardship? The tools exist. They just need policymakers and practitioners to adopt them at scale.

Ever wondered why historic places matter to you? Watch @imadgination03.bsky.social give a preview of her new book on emotion and place. 'Why Historic Places Matter Emotionally’ - coming soon to a bookshop near you…

Elites in cities, elite cities: Processes of (dis)affiliation, (dis)connection and distinction sheffield.ac.uk/urban-instit...

More than 13,000 people were seen sleeping rough on the streets of London in 2024/25 - the highest on record. This is almost 4x higher than 15 years ago, in 2008/2009, and a 10% increase in just 12 months.

These figures ones again underline the scale of London's housing crisis - a city where 1 in 50 residents are living in temporary accommodation, and more than 300,000 households are on social housing waiting lists. Explore data on London's Poverty Profile: trustforlondon.org.uk/data/rough-s...

Evolution or disempowerment? How the English Devolution Bill undermines local government northeastbylines.co.uk/news/politic...

In last week's Basic Income Show we discussed a new study that showed how blood plasma income (about $400/mo) reduces crime by 12%. People shouldn't have to sell their blood for survival income, and we should acknowledge how much crime is survival crime. itsanewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/itsa-found...

Greater Manchester is rewriting the rules to put communities in charge. The Live Well initiative in Greater Manchester is reshaping how local authorities engage with people by putting power & funds into communities’ hands. Read our conversation with Live Well.

I’ve been told that the same search now returns an AI comment that this does not happen and cites my site as the source. So you have to run a site considered as authoritative by Google and explicitly call out the nonsense to get it corrected…

Fantastic to see the housing minister visit one of over 140 completed CLT housing projects in England. Citizens House was only made possible by the Community Housing Fund, which enabled London CLT to (a) secure land and planning and (b) build a non-standard tenure. We need it reopened!

If we're doing English devolution proposals again.

💬 “If action isn’t taken to close these widening gaps, access to AI risks becoming the next major barrier to opportunity for disadvantaged young people.” Our new report reveals major differences in how state and private schools are adopting AI tools 👇

🚨 New blog post: 'A History of Council Housing in Rochdale: Part II, from 1945 to 1966' looks at the town's new 'neighbourhood unit' created in the 1950s and two innovative but troubled projects of the 1960s: municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2025/07/15/a...

'A wanton and inexcusable waste of life'. My new blog post examines the impact of slum housing in Rochdale and the council housebuilding programme that brought about reform: municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2025/07/08/a...

💥 100 neighbourhoods. 100 inspiring stories of change. Today sees the launch of our new campaign that celebrates a huge milestone of 100 areas completing the Big Local programme. Take a look at some of the areas in our new video and visit our website to find a Big Local near you: bit.ly/4lqOTxO

We had a great session at the @local.gov.uk conference yesterday on building community-powered public services. We’re calling for the upcoming English Devolution Bill to enable strong partnership working between local government & community groups. More here: www.right-here.org/asks/ #LGAConf25

This morning, we launched our Green Paper in Parliament – brilliant discussion with Alex Norris MP, Josh MacAlister MP and Jade Botterill MP. It’s great to see the enthusiasm in Westminster for our proposals.

ICON today launches its Green Paper – twenty proposals to deliver neighbourhood renewal. You can read the full Green Paper and respond to the public consultation on our proposals here: www.neighbourhoodscommission.org.uk/report/icons...

While the value of social infrastructure projects is clear to those involved, their financial impact is often hard to quantify. 📢 We’re pleased to announce the launch of our report with Frontier Economics, 'The Return on Investment of the All Neighbourhoods Thriving (ANT) Fund'. [1/3]

The state of our rental housing is simply not good enough. We need higher standards, proper funding for repairs, and investment in insulation – but we continue to see inaction and shrinking budgets. I called on the Government to act fast so that everyone can live in safe, warm, and secure housing.

Just watched www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p... I was reeling from hammering #workingclass livelihoods #pride Glad the prog reflected on #Capitalism I think it's devoid of soul there. A tomb that people visit as a #trophy #tourism #Polarisation #UK and #shallowplanning is #shouting at me #gentrification

Health inequalities are endemic: disadvantaged areas face higher rates of long-term illness than the England average. How could community-led health respond to this challenge? Come to our next seminar on 29 April in London to find out. All researchers (broadly defined) welcome!

📍 Congratulations to Noel Park Big Local in North London on the launch of their new playground in Russell Park! Four years in the making, the project was described by Noel Park service director Euclides Montes as “a labour of love for our community”. Read about the launch: buff.ly/IL7OYDL [2/3]

Grows out of JustSpace.org.uk/recovery & work of Fairville with @bartlett dpu

Wacquant (2023: 64) merges Goffman's concept of stigma with Bourdieu's theory of symbolic power. Interesting to grapple with, altho' of course any theorising is often far removed from lived experience #stigma and violent #forces of unaffordable #hunger #work #housing, access to opportunities

www.researchgate.net/publication/... #LoicWacquant ongoing fragmentation of the wage labour relationship, the functional disconnection of dispossessed neighbourhoods... #polarise #fragment #loss #ouch #hardhitting

Thinking about #stigma, growing up experiencing #poverty and how #housing and other #socialpolicy can compound these experiences. Thoughts came from reading this cpag.org.uk/child-povert...

'Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Housing in Leyton', published by Leyton Borough Council in 1964/65, just before transition to the new London Borough of Waltham Forest. This summarises housing developments post WWI & WWII, alongside a photographic record with details of rents payable. #BookoftheMonth

*How gentrification is changing populations in London* Our new analysis identified 53 neighbourhoods that have experienced significant gentrification in the last 15 years. This allows us to explore how populations are changing as a result of the housing crisis...

For anyone interested in the debates over regeneration, Simon Elmer and Architects for Social Housing are an essential reference point. A new book by the former here: architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/2025/04/12/c...

For tips on finding and applying to funding opportunities, download our free community action plan. Created with Stir to Action, it includes advice on writing strong bids and examples of #BigLocal areas that successfully secured funding for lasting impact: buff.ly/E0ipFWb [2/2]

In our most recent PSL Demo Day, @lorettaclees.bsky.social, @kentoncard.bsky.social , and Andre Comandon talk about their project creating an open source tool to assess housing displacement risk.

Hospitals in England could shed 100,000 jobs. No impact assessment produced. A Wes Streeting recipe for privatisation dressed up as efficiency drive. NHS will be a shell doling out contracts to the private sector. 30% -40% of money will vanish in profits. Money will buy less. Must resist.

Women do 50% more unpaid work than men. A four-day week and flexible working can help close the gender gap at home and work. In our latest blog, Nasreen Gordon makes the feminist case for shorter hours. 👇 www.wbg.org.uk/article/brea...

🚨 New on Substack, my post on Westminster's Churchill Gardens Estate voted by the Civic Trust in 2000 the outstanding building scheme of the preceding forty years: municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-church...

💰 Money bags and bin bags 🚮 @bhamcitycouncil.bsky.social pays its commissioners £1m+ a year, gives councillors a £1k pay rise & throws many thousands at employment agencies & declaring a ‘major incident’. All whilst cutting services & bin workers' pay. Come on BCC! Stop the cuts. Clean up the city 🧹

And yet, we have the two-child cap in Universal Credit......

NEW: We’ve just published new analysis into gentrification across London. The analysis identifies 53 neighbourhoods that have experienced significant gentrification in the last 15 years. This accounts for more than a quarter of the areas that, in 2012, had the lowest incomes. Key findings...

The whole Boomer, Gen Z, X, millennial discourse is really boring & just another neoliberal tactic of separation & atomisation. People born a few years apart have more in common than such division suggests, & we all together have the fight against billionaires & oligarchs that needs solidarity.

Following up my last post, an article that is referred to: 'The Case for Truly Public Housing': placesjournal.org/article/the-...

🚨 New blog post. Today's guest post looks at the once lauded post-war Hillcrest Estate in Highgate built by Hornsey Borough Council: ‘of a kind which many well-to-do people would very gladly inhabit’ ... municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2025/04/01/t...