Where we live can greatly affect our opportunities in life. For those living in areas of need, quality of life can be severely limited by what has been called 'postcode poverty'. Neighbourhood Renewal aims to improve the quality of life for those living in the most disadvantaged areas by tackling:

• Poor job prospects
• High crime levels
• Educational under-achievement
• Poor health
• Problems with housing and their local environment

Neighbourhood Renewal harnesses the work of all Government Departments, local public services, the community and private and voluntary sectors to tackle deprivation and drive through improvements.

Our national strategy and action plan, A New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal, was produced in 2001 with the overarching principle that within 10 to 20 years no-one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live.

The strategy delivers ways of attacking the root problems of declining areas such as high unemployment, weak economies and poor schools.  It uses the power of partnership between sectors forming Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) uniting each district's major players from the public, private, community and voluntary sectors to work together for the benefit of the whole community to drive forward change.  

Neighbourhood renewal improves the quality of life and attracts people back into declining areas. There are wider consequences if we continue to neglect deprived areas. They can stifle opportunity elsewhere and drain overall public resources in terms of benefits as well as the additional spending needed on crime prevention, social services, health care and so on.

With this in mind, the Neighbourhood Renewal agenda provides a commitment to creating sustainable communities - thriving, well run, active, inclusive and most importantly safe places to live. Places that people are proud of and where anti-social behaviour and disrespect for people and the local environment is no longer tolerated. 

For further information visit www.neighbourhood.gov.uk (external link). Please note this website is no longer being updated and is linked to for purely historical information and publications.

The site provides links to support tools such as Floor Targets Interactive and a range of useful Factsheets and Toolkits.

In this section

• Indices of Deprivation
• Working Neighbourhoods Fund
• Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI)
• Supporting Evidence for Local Delivery
• Private Sector Engagement
• Tackling Worklessness Review
• Neighbourhood Management
• Inspiring Communities
• Anti-social behaviour

http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/neighbourhoodrenewal/