Outcomes from community engagement in urban regeneration: evidence from England’s New Deal for Communities Programme

The New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme was one of the most intensive area-based initiatives (ABIs) ever launched in England. Between 1998 and 2010, 39 NDC partnerships were charged with implementing 10-year, locally informed strategies designed to improve conditions within deprived neighbourhoods each accommodating around 9,800 people. More than any other previous English ABI, the NDC programme placed a strong emphasis on informing and engaging the 39 local communities in all aspects of the regeneration process. The programme can be seen as a laboratory within which to assess relationships between community involvement in regeneration and any associated outcomes. Change data indicates that at the area-level there is nothing to suggest NDC areas saw more change than other deprived localities, or that NDCs doing more in relation to the community dimension saw greater change than those doing less. Data showing change for individuals, however, reveals that those involved in NDC activities saw more gains than those who were not involved. This positive individual-level change is not reflected in area-level data because absolute levels of involvement remained essentially low. This was for a number of reasons, some of which relate to the evolving NDC narrative: greater control from central government, diminishing community interest in the initiative, and over-optimistic assumptions on the part of local residents as to what the programme could ever achieve.