How neighbourhood governance can unlock community power
The way decisions are made in neighbourhoods across England is about to change. The government is currently shaping new ‘neighbourhood governance arrangements’, following the passage of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act. While we don’t yet know the details of how these will look, we do know that this could be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put communities in the driving seat of local decision-making.
These arrangements could combine the mandate of elected representatives with the knowledge, relationships and experience of local people and community organisations, making neighbourhood decision-making more collaborative, inclusive and effective.
In our new four-part animation series, you can learn about how different community-powered approaches to neighbourhood governance can solve some of our country’s biggest challenges. From improving healthcare to providing decent housing, community-led approaches, like citizens’ assemblies and community covenants, can lead to change that people can see, feel, and be proud of.
This animation series builds on our blueprint for community-powered neighbourhood governance co-written with Locality, HOPE Not Hate, Local Trust, and Power to Change.
The four episodes are:
Episode 1: Shaping family services through a community covenant
A community covenant brings local people, community organisations, and local council representatives together to jointly shape decisions for their area. Working together as equal partners, the covenant members decide how decisions will be made, agree on shared priorities, and deliver change. Having a senior council representative or representatives involved ensures that decisions are made within the scope of the powers and responsibilities delegated to the community, and can move smoothly through the appropriate council processes for implementation.
In Market Drayton, Shropshire, a pilot community covenant resulted in a new community and family hub, designed and run by the community. Learn more about the pilot and its impact on local people in the case study.
Case study: Designing a family hub through a community covenant in Market Drayton
In late 2024, twenty community organisations and parish and town councils came together to form the Market Drayton and Rural Parishes Community Covenant. This was a national pilot supported by Power to Change and convened by Fordhall Community Land Initiative, a trusted community anchor in the area. The Community Covenant established a new kind of power-sharing agreement, putting local communities into direct collaboration with Shropshire Council on local decisions. Their task was to plan, design, and launch a new family and community hub: a place where families could access support, advice, and services in one place.
The Community Covenant began by agreeing on a group charter that set out how members would work together and stay accountable to their local community. Meeting in person every three to four weeks, the group shaped what the new hub should offer, how it could respond to local people’s needs, and where it should be based.
In April 2026, the new family and community hub opened as a monthly drop-in at an established community venue in Market Drayton. It offers a safe and caring space where local people can share their concerns, relax, and access advice on issues identified by the community, including housing, council tax, health, and benefits.
And it doesn’t end here. Having proved popular with both the council and the community, the Community Covenant will now take on a new challenge, showing how collaborative decision-making can better shape services to meet local people’s needs.
“Being able to pilot a community covenant in Market Drayton and co-produce a Family Hub has been described as ‘a gift’ by Shropshire Council, and as an ‘incredible opportunity’ by our community. This will ensure that the scarce resources available are used in the most effective way possible to deliver the greatest impact for our town.”
– Charlotte Hollins, Fordhall Farm Manager, We’re Right Here Campaign Leader and Community Covenant member.
“When communities are treated as equal partners, they bring that insight and energy and that legitimacy to what will hopefully lead to some really positive sustainable outcomes for them.”
– Melanie France, Shropshire Council and Community Covenant member.
More resources
- Power to Change partnered with Fordhall Community Land Initiative to pilot the Market Drayton Community Covenant. Find out more about Power to Change’s community covenant test and learn partnerships.
- An interview with three of the members of Market Drayton’s Community Covenant working group: Charlotte Hollins, Fordhall Community Land Initiative, Melanie France, Shropshire Council, and Tim Manton, Market Drayton Town Council.
- A news article announcing the launch of the new Family and Community Hub in Market Drayton, as a result of the community covenant’s decision-making process, via Shropshire Live.
- Learn about the origins of the Community Covenant proposal: Community Power Act (pages 27-36)
Episode 2: Making local spending plans through participatory budgeting
Participatory budgeting gives local people a direct say in how a set amount of public money is spent. Residents come together to discuss what matters most to them, develop spending proposals, and vote on which ones go ahead.
In many participatory budgeting processes, councils commit in advance to implementing the projects that residents choose unless there are exceptional legal or safeguarding reasons not to, giving communities real decision-making power over a defined budget. The community then plays a role in the scrutiny and monitoring of the process following the allocation of budgets. By involving communities in local budget decisions, public money is spent in a way that better reflects the strengths, needs, and aspirations of the local community.
Over 3,000 places in the world have run participatory budgeting projects.* In Hilgrove Estate, Camden, residents came together to decide how to spend part of their estate’s budget in a participatory budgeting exercise. Read about the process, the difference it made, and the experiences of those involved.
Case study: Improving Hilgrove Estate through participatory budgeting
In 2023, The Winch, a youth and community charity based in Camden, worked with residents of Hilgrove Estate to help them decide how part of their estate budget would be spent over the next two years. Residents had a say over how existing services are run and came up with new ideas for estate improvements and projects.
Eight residents were recruited to coordinate the participatory budgeting project. They knocked on doors and ran workshops to gather ideas and opinions from their neighbours. Over 175 residents attended workshops or events, and over 80 ideas for improvements were submitted. The coordinating group developed criteria and agreed a shortlist of ideas based on feasibility, community benefit, and fairness. Then, the whole estate voted for their favourites. Their winning proposals included improved bike storage, better bin facilities, sensory play equipment, and a new apprentice caretaker.
The Winch supported residents to design, lead and get the best out of the decision-making process. The participatory budgeting project followed on from a two-year community organising programme run by the Winch, which developed the capacity of residents to lead change and built a constructive relationship with the council.
Taking on the role of trusted convener between the residents and the council, the Winch helped to manage bureaucratic processes and challenges. While the decision-making process was relatively quick and accessible, implementation of the proposals has taken over two years to complete.
Whilst not all of the winning proposals have been actioned by the council in the expected timeframe, leading to some frustration, residents across the estate have seen the benefit of new sensory play equipment and better bin facilities.
“My family have lived on the estate for over 20 years and I’ve seen it change in lots of ways. When you live somewhere, you know better than any council officer what changes will actually improve the lives of you and your neighbours.” – J, Participant in the participatory budgeting coordinating group
Participatory budgeting is a community-powered approach to budgeting in stark contrast to traditional top-down decision-making. Residents decide how money in their neighbourhood is spent, so the budget goes towards tackling the issues and making the improvements that matter most to them.
“You don’t have much control if you are alone, it is better when there are more of us. The council can sometimes be difficult in terms of issues like mould, damp and repairs…having been part of the participatory budgeting process, I became a member of the Tenants and Residents Association, and we do our best to solve whatever issues come up.”
– N, Participant in the participatory budgeting coordinating group
More resources
- Learn more about Hilgrove Estate’s participatory budgeting project via the Good Neighbourhood Project.
- The Values, Principles, and Standards for participatory budgeting via Shared Future
- Participatory budgeting for youth development activities in Cheetham Hill via Shared Future
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This article from Local Trust’s online resource, Learning from Big Local, provides an overview of what can be achieved when residents have more control over funding and decisions made in their local area. Explore the wide range of issues communities across the Big Local programme chose to prioritise, improving their neighbourhoods and the lives of local people in the process: ‘What kind of activities did Big Local residents focus on?’
- The origins of participatory budgeting and how it can address systemic risk via ASRA
- * A report exploring the three main reasons why more than 3,000 cities and municipalities have implemented participatory budgeting: Next Generation Democracy: Participatory Budgeting report
Episode 3: Improving health and care through a citizens’ assembly
A citizens’ assembly brings together a group of people, chosen at random from the public, to learn about, discuss, and make recommendations on a specific issue or set of issues. Members are selected to be representative of the wider population. Over a series of sessions, they hear from experts, discuss and debate different arguments, and make recommendations.
The recommendations are then considered by elected representatives or decision-makers, who respond and take them forward through the appropriate decision-making processes. To build trust in the process, the relevant decision-making body usually commits to publicly responding to the assembly’s recommendations and setting out how they will be acted upon in advance of the sessions. Some communities, however, may choose to adopt a ‘popular assembly’ model instead to allow anyone in their community to be involved in the process, and so they can set out their own terms of engagement with the relevant state actor.
Alternatively, the Popular Assembly model allows anyone in the community to get involved in the process. This approach also allows communities to set out their own terms of engagement with the relevant state actor, including how decisions are discussed, what issues are prioritised, and how public bodies are expected to respond and remain accountable to the community.
Case study: Greater Manchester's 'GM Live Well Assembly'
GM Live Well is Greater Manchester’s strategic commitment to ensuring great everyday support is available in every neighbourhood. Live Well brings together support for health and wellbeing, recognising that public services and Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise partners can tackle health, social and economic inequalities by changing how they work with communities to grow opportunities for everyone to Live Well.
In February 2026, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) invited community leaders and people working across neighbourhoods, organisations and services to the ‘GM Live Well Assembly’. Taking a citizens’ assembly approach, the assembly encouraged members to deliberate recommendations for the development of a Greater Manchester Live Well Alliance – a community-led and system-enabled transformative governance model for Greater Manchester Live Well that centres community voice and grows community power to share decision-making accountability and leadership.
To ensure a diverse group of Greater Manchester’s communities joined the assembly, sortition was used to randomly select assembly members. The sortition criteria oversampled groups who face the greatest inequalities in society, representing diversity of income and education levels, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, household income, and location. Running over three full days, the assembly presented expert evidence on community-led and transformative decision-making processes, and dedicated time for participants to learn together and deliberate, and an opportunity to shape recommendations. By the end of the three days, the participants had developed a set of recommendations for how communities could be at the heart of decision-making through the GM Live Well Alliance.
Greater Manchester’s citizens’ assembly was a collaborative and community-led approach to shaping a new working relationship between public services and local people. It created valuable space for people with lived experience, professional experience, and community relationships to share knowledge, grow community power and iterate ideas together. Since the assembly closed, a summary of the Live Well Assembly has been presented to the Greater Manchester Live Well Board. At a future Board meeting, assembly members will present the final recommendations and share updates on the progress being made.
“My key takeaway was a genuine commitment… to shift power back to communities…with Wigan recognised as one of the leading examples of where progress is already happening.” – A Live Well assembly member who represented Ataraxia For All, originally published on Wigan Borough Community First.
More resources
- Learn more about citizens’ assemblies and read case studies, including the 2017 citizens’ assembly on Brexit and the 2016 Dunfermline New City Assembly, via citizensaseemblies.co.uk
- How to run a citizen’s assembly via Sortition Foundation
- A guide to popular assemblies by The Humanity Project
- A case study on Luton Marsh Farm’s people’s assembly via The Humanity Project
- A blog by Locality: “Participatory democracy is good for you! Neighbourhood governance in a Neighbourhood Health Service”, via We’re Right Here
Episode 4: Planning housing and development through a neighbourhood forum
Neighbourhood forums are resident-led groups that bring local people, businesses, and community organisations together to discuss issues and set priorities and plans for their area. Forums gather local views before producing formal strategies – called neighbourhood plans – to guide the future development of their places. Once approved through a local referendum and formally adopted by the council, neighbourhood plans become part of the statutory planning framework and must be taken into account when decisions about local development are made.
In Makerfield, residents from Abram Ward set up a neighbourhood forum and developed a plan to transform their area “into a great place to live and work, with the environment at its heart.” Read about Abram Ward’s neighbourhood forum and its impact on the community in the case study below.
Case study: Planning for the future with a neighbourhood forum in Makerfield
In 2015, residents in Abram ward in Makerfield, via Abram Ward Community Cooperative (now Wigan and Leigh Community Charity), set up a neighbourhood forum to engage local people in designing a plan for the future of their area. Through consultations and workshops with around 1,000 local people from the five villages that make up the ward, residents identified issues affecting their area, collated new ideas, and co-developed a vision for the next fifteen years.
Over the next decade, the neighbourhood forum developed a neighbourhood plan that covered different areas of life: environment, health, wellbeing, economic development, and housing. Their priorities included:
- Developing affordable, energy-efficient, high-quality homes for people of all ages.
- Enhancing and protecting nationally significant landscapes and green spaces.
- Creating local employment opportunities and supporting the development of local community businesses.
Ultimately, the plan aimed to develop Abram ward “into a great place to live and work, with the environment at its heart.” The neighbourhood plan went to a public referendum in January 2025. Local people voted and approved the plan.
Since then, several priorities from the plan have been implemented, including saving Bickershaw Village Club and developing the Platt Bridge Community Green. The relationship between Wigan Council and the community has also changed, with the council now routinely sending planning policy information to the Forum, enabling local people to have a say in development decisions.
The neighbourhood forum has faced challenges along the way. As volunteers, time and money were their main obstacles. Their small budget was mainly spent on hiring experts to advise on planning policy, leaving little to cover volunteer expenses. That meant organising fewer in-person events and relying more heavily on social media to engage local people, which had a knock-on effect on accessibility.
Nonetheless, by bringing people from all five villages together, the neighbourhood forum has helped residents shape the future of Abram ward. It has also built people’s confidence and enthusiasm for community organising.
More resources
- How to establish a neighbourhood planning forum via Locality
- An overview of neighbourhood planning via myCommunity
- A blog on planning from the ground through community-powered neighbourhood governance by Tom Chance, Chief Executive of the Community Land Trust Network
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