The Levelling Up Communities Fund is a recommendation by Danny Kruger MP, who was tasked with proposing solutions for the post-COVID recovery phase by the Prime Minister, following the outpouring of community activity during the pandemic.
Kruger’s twenty recommendations to Government focus on supporting and enhancing community power and activity to help neighbourhoods across the country thrive.
It’s central recommendation for over £2bn investment in long-term, community-led transformation of left-behind areas, financed through the next wave of dormant assets aligns with the objectives of the APPG for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods.
Since launching earlier this year, the Group has investigated ways to enable them to ‘level up’ and improve the social and economic outcomes of local residents. One solution the group has advocated for is the creation of a Community Wealth Fund, similar to the endowment laid out in Kruger’s review. The fund would be hyper-local, community-led, long-term and focused on building community confidence and capacity in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods. It would provide a foundational investment in social infrastructure such as shared places to meet, supporting local community groups, and developing better physical and digital connectivity – to other areas, resources, services and opportunities.
A Community Wealth Fund Alliance has also recently been building momentum with almost 260 signatories from across the private, public and third sector now supporting the idea.
Conservative Co-Chair of the APPG Paul Howell MP said:
“I’m delighted to see this report from Danny Kruger MP, and the response of the Prime Minister. The APPG for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods that I jointly Chair has already called for the creation of a Community Wealth Fund, and our work aligns with many of the issues raised in the report and the points made by the Prime Minister.
“As an APPG we are working to research and develop policies that help deliver on the levelling up and community empowerment agendas, and with strong cross-party support and a growing membership the APPG looks forward to supporting and accelerating this vitally important programme of work.”
Labour Co-Chair of the APPG Dame Diana Johnson DBE MP said:
“As Co-Chair of the APPG for the 225 neighbourhoods that have been identified as ‘left behind’, I welcome the ideas in this report, such as the call to use £2bn of dormant assets create a new endowment fund to invest in long-term change that empowers communities to take action on issues that matter most to them. I encourage MPs from all parties to work together on this vitally important agenda so that we can turn it into a reality.”