Building community pride

Introduction

From the trees and flowers in the park, to a village hall or a buzzing high street, all communities have features their residents take pride in. These things tie us to where we live, forming our sense of place identity and belonging.

The National Lottery Community Fund grants support community places, spaces and activities across the UK. Here we share learning from this work, showing what we’ve found out from our grant holders about building and strengthening local pride.

Why this matters

Building pride and belonging is an important priority for our country. The government’s Pride in Place programme is distributing £5.8 billion to 284 areas across the UK. Each area will receive up to £20 million over the next 10 years to make long-term improvements that residents want.

This is needed, given that Census data from the Office for National Statistics shows that people’s sense of belonging to their neighbourhoods has fallen.

Here at The National Lottery Community Fund, in a typical year 42% of our grant holders report that people have more local pride and belonging because of the services or activities we support them to deliver.

This means that, as well as our projects being key contributors to local pride, the work of our grant holders can contribute to a better understanding of what pride in place means and how to improve it.

What we’ve learned

Community-led insights

We’ve learned from National Lottery funded organisations that there are different ways to strengthen local pride.

Empowering people to design and shape where they live

People having a real say in local decisions and how funding is allocated is a key factor in building pride in place.

One way to do this is to have organisations pitch their ideas to the community, who then vote for which projects get funded. We’ve seen this working well. However, experience also suggests that in some cases it may be unreasonable to expect residents to choose between different but equally vitally services.

Time spent strengthening relationships between members of the community is never wasted. Neutral venues and independent facilitation help. Supporting people to debate and disagree constructively is useful too.

Co-designed services and activities bring many benefits. Blending lived and professional experience, and being open about what is/isn’t possible, helps.

It’s important to include communities that don’t usually have a say or feel excluded. A diverse outreach team can help a wider range of people feel confident enough to get involved or speak up. Offering compensation for people’s time is important too.

Improving and safeguarding local amenities

Amenities are the physical cornerstones of a community. They provide essential services from places for people to connect, to food and transport.

Where local amenities don’t meet a community’s needs, residents might feel that their area has been left behind.

Community ownership can offer a solution, but it’s necessary to make sure it doesn’t end up making buildings and land into liabilities for the community. Due diligence is vital.

Reinvesting profits from community-run amenities into local good causes can help people see the cause and effect of their work, encouraging more community involvement.

Grants and guidance to make community venues more energy efficient can be vital in terms of keeping them affordable to run.

Community-run amenities often have a social mission, which can be key in attracting volunteers and support. Few community shops generate significant profit, but the commitment of local volunteers contributes to their success.

Making the local environment feel safe and look attractive

How an area looks and feels is central to people feeling proud to live there. Clean streets are often cited among the most important elements of making somewhere a good place to live.

Helping young people feel a sense of responsibility for an area can be vital in making sure it’s used and cared for. Involving them in planning, designing and building spaces and facilities is essential.

When people feel accountable to their immediate neighbours for looking after the street and making it visually attractive, they are more likely to be advocates for wider action too.

Underused places like building foyers and spaces outside shops can facilitate chance encounters where people get to know each other, building the familiarity that makes them into a community. Benches and plants that make such spaces more inviting improve the chances of this happening.

Supporting community venues to thrive and offer a range of activities

Community venues can increase people’s sense of pride in their area, providing a place for residents to come together.

People in areas where pride in place is lower frequently cite the lack of social facilities as a key issue.

Community run venues such as libraries and pubs often become broader community hubs, hosting classes, support groups and community meetings, alongside their primary functions.

Putting activities on in the evening can make them more accessible, as people in full-time work or education can take part.

Providing too many different activities might be unaffordable. Starting small and being ready to add options on the basis local preferences and needs helps.

Creating opportunities for people to participate and build broader community ties

People need opportunities for participation so that they keep coming together and deepen their bonds.

Around two-thirds of our grant holders provide opportunities for people to mix with others who are different to them. Those grants are more likely than average to also increase social contact, improve mental health, and reduce loneliness.

Frontline workers, including teachers, nurses and shop staff, are well positioned to identify lonely or isolated people. With training, they can signpost those individuals to community services and opportunities.

Not everyone will be interested in active participation; it’s useful to focus energy on those who show an interest, as quality of participation matters more than the number of people involved.

Participation linked to national celebrations can be easier to engage people in. The Spirit of 2012 programme built on the legacy and community spirit of the 2012 Olympics to bring people together.

People will be able to commit different amounts of time and energy, so offering a range of entry points, roles and tasks is essential.

Regenerating and reimagining town centres and high streets

The decline of many UK’s high streets is a major contributor to feelings of being left behind in many communities.

Power to Change notes that more than two-thirds of people worry about high street deterioration and the impact it has on civic pride.

There’s an opportunity to make high streets more community focused, which offer a healthy combination of retail, culture, residential units, community businesses, meeting places, community services, and creative spaces.

High street housing should be planned carefully, working with people who already live nearby to find out what they want in the area. This will help to avoid conflicts between existing residents and newcomers.

Some of our grant holders provide spaces at ‘living rent’, which is benchmarked against local income levels and capped so it doesn’t rise beyond inflation.

Restoring and using heritage buildings to enhance people’s connection to place

Historic England has found that 92% of people living in areas with a historic regeneration scheme felt that it had raised local pride.

And 80% of people feel heritage makes their area a better place to live.

People from less privileged socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to participate in heritage, and therefore less likely to feel the sense of pride in place that historic assets offer. Specific outreach activities can address this, making it clear that local heritage is for everyone in the community.

Restored heritage assets need to be carefully managed and maintained. If left to fall into disrepair, they can become sites for antisocial behaviour, with a negative impact on local pride.

Getting people involved in restoration work can give people a sense of ownership

Harnessing culture to bring people together

Participation in cultural activities can increase pride in place.

Our funded projects offering arts and heritage activities are more likely than others to result in an increased sense of community pride and belonging.

Unconscious feelings of ownership and propriety can make some people feel spaces like libraries and museums are ‘for them’, and can make others feel the opposite. Unexpected activities in these spaces can help more people to feel included.

Activities like theatre, dance and performance should be accessible for all members of a diverse community.

If one-off events like festivals are successful, it’s worth harnessing the momentum to make them more regular.

Key messages

Beyond just being consulted, people need a real say in local decisions and how funding is allocated.

Neighbourhoods need ‘bumping spaces’ where people meet by chance and interact naturally to get to know one another better. If these spaces are attractive and welcoming, they have a better chance of building social bonds.

Community ownership of key amenities can make up for insufficient local provision.

The activities offered by community-led venues can be a social lifeline, and help people to recognise one another as friends and neighbours rather than strangers.

Volunteering helps people become engaged, and linking opportunities to local and national celebrations can be a good way to engage new people.

As retail declines, there is an opportunity to diversify our high streets and make them more community focussed. This can help communities feel ownership of their town centres.

Engaging in local history can help people to build a sense of shared identity through learning more about their past. Heritage buildings offer a way to do this, especially when they make everyone feel welcome.

Cultural events bring people together and give them an outlet to express themselves to one another. This can strengthen community bonds, especially when events help people to connect across different dividing lines.

Find out more

We carried out this research in 2022. To learn more, read our full report.

You can find statistics on belonging from the Office for National Statistics.

Discover more about the Government’s Pride in Place programme.