'There's no short cuts on the long road to recovery'

Posted on February 11, 2026

SIGOMA strongly backs the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods’ call for urgent action to support the most deprived communities, says Sir Stephen Houghton.

The need for increased investment in deprived communities is something that the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (SIGOMA) has long championed. It was therefore encouraging to see the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (ICON) set out a clear call to action on this recently, centred on increased, sustained funding for local government.

ICON's report, "No Short Cuts", sets out the urgent need for a national neighbourhood strategy to support the recovery of many of the most deprived neighbourhoods across the country. Around 70% of the neighbourhoods identified by ICON as ‘mission critical' (those that have seen the least progress in delivering the Government's missions) are within SIGOMA areas, highlighting the deep damage caused by more than a decade of chronic underfunding and the need for national, targeted support.

The report has three key strands: social capital, local services and economic investment. While the first two are important, they will not succeed without place-based economic investment. In the end, that is the cure for those left-behind places.

Little is being said or done about that. As the report says, city-based and sector-based strategies do not trickle out to the wider towns and countryside. Unless we invest in local places, economies and businesses, we will fail those places and the people in them; the Government's economic strategies need to recognise that.

We support the call for a national neighbourhood recovery pipeline: a phased, 20-year programme to support the most disadvantaged areas in their recovery. Unsurprisingly, 95% of the areas in ICON's recovery pipeline sit within authorities receiving the recovery grant which is targeted at deprived areas that saw the biggest funding cuts during austerity.

We fully support ICON's call to make the recovery grant permanent, and we strongly welcomed the Government's decision to continue this vital funding, as well as former local government minister Jim McMahon's call to increase the funding pot. As ICON's report makes clear, sufficient funding for local government is fundamental to tackling the deep-rooted and disproportionate disadvantage that persists across the country.

The call for a national neighbourhood strategy is not just a moral mission for government: it is an economic necessity. ICON's analysis shows that had mission critical neighbourhoods grown at the national rate since 2010, they would have added nearly £10bn to the economy and generated billions more in tax revenue.

Our communities are ready to take on the challenge. More than a decade of austerity has left many on their knees. As the Government has said, ‘the recovery is not over' for our areas, and a national strategy backed by sufficient needs-based, long-term funding is essential to secure that recovery and ensure our areas can begin to rebuild.

You can read the article in The MJ here.