Why Residents Must Lead Community Recovery In Left-behind Places

The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods’ (ICON) ‘No Short Cuts’ report and its findings are a realistic reflection of the challenges facing the most disadvantaged communities in the UK. 

With the economic gap between these areas and the rest of the country widening by £10bn over the last decade and projections suggesting that crime rates in deprived wards could rise significantly by 2030, the scale of the task is undeniable.

However, while the data presents a bleak outlook for the next few years without intervention, ICON’s recommendations and the experience of Right to Succeed on the ground in places like the Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester, offers a more positive outlook. 

At Right to Succeed, we have seen the proof that when you empower communities to strengthen social infrastructure, build social capital and create new opportunities at a hyper-local level, you can defy national trends.

Moving Beyond the Top-Down Approach

The ICON report identifies 613 ‘Mission Critical’ neighbourhoods. This is not a failure of the community; it is a failure of the top-down approach to regeneration. 

Central government has made assumptions and implemented changes to a community, rather than with them. This strips away a community’s agency and diminishes motivation.

Our role at Right to Succeed is to act as a backbone organisation. We bring pre-existing community services together and identify gaps. This gives a community control over its own regeneration and access to essential services on its own doorstep.

The Power of the ‘Pipeline’

ICON calls for a Neighbourhood Recovery Pipeline (NRP) - a long-term pathway for government intervention.

After nearly six years of delivery, RtS’ flagship Cradle to Career programme in North Birkenhead, Wirral, is a trusted and impactful support system for local families.

With funding from the Liverpool City Region (LCR) Combined Authority, it was expanded across all LCR councils two years later, showing the impact of local government buy-in. 

In late 2025, we launched in the West Midlands, with funding from the WM Combined Authority. Importantly, West Midlands will have its own bespoke approach, while using LCR as a blueprint, starting with a twelve-month period of discovery.

Multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) across our programmes reflect ICON’s recommendation for community MDTs.

The success of the MDT approach after three years in Halton Lea, convinced Halton Council to scale the resource in the team from seven workers to 20 workers for years 4-6.

Results from MDT intervention in North Birkenhead, Halton Lea and Northwood in the Liverpool City Region include:

• A 90% fall in the number of children in care or on the edge of care in North Birkenhead after five years.

  •  Reducing children facing care from 7-8 cases per week to 7-8 cases per year.

• In Halton Lea after three years of C2C delivery - early help assessments up 125%; level 3 referrals down 55%; and level 4 referrals down 34.4.%

  • Reducing the amount of children being escalated to social workers or on the edge/into care.

• In Northwood, Knowsley after three years of C2C delivery - level 3 closure rate was up 62.2% and level 4 closure rate was up 38.9%

  • More children being stepped down to early help support and returning to families.

    
    

Resilience for the future

ICON is right to call for an annual investment of £2 - 2.5bn for the next 20 years. However, money alone is not the answer. 

As the report notes, many neighbourhoods currently lack the capacity to deliver large-scale programmes on their own. 

Backbone organisations and external agencies, like Right to Succeed, can help bring together, develop and support skills within communities. This builds resilience and ensures that when government funding does arrive, such as the Pride in Place fund, there are skilled local teams ready to coordinate it. 

However, like ICON says, there are no shortcuts to this process. We are currently at the test and learn stage for onward resilience in North Birkenhead after five years of backbone delivery. But we do know that without community agency, even the largest investment and most robust external support will fail to create long-term impact.

Data-Driven with Humility

A key recommendation from ICON is the creation of a Neighbourhood Data Observatory. In 2021, we developed our Shared Measurement Framework with NPC (New Philanthropy Capital), to ensure that our work is driven by evidence. This model allows us to track outcomes across literacy, crime and health in real-time and hold ourselves accountable to the communities we serve.

In our work across Rochdale, Tameside and Central Great Yarmouth, even within combined authorities such as Liverpool City Region and West Midlands, we have found that every community is unique.

A one-size-fits-all approach will never work at scale. We must have the humility and curiosity to listen to the specific challenges and focuses of each place, with the patience to wait for lasting impact.

A Future with Agency

The projections for 2030 do not have to be our reality. If we move away from top-down, one-size-fits-all approaches and instead commit to building community agency, we can turn the ship around. The blueprint for recovery exists; now, we need the national commitment to follow it.

Rekha Patel-Harrison is the Chief Programmes Officer at place-based change charity, Right to Succeed.