Steve Reed’s Business in the Community speech on Pride in Place 2026

Key Points

• Communities Secretary Steve Reed used a speech at Business in the Community on 2 June 2026 to argue that local businesses are central to community pride, local growth, and regeneration.
• He said the government’s Pride in Place programme will back nearly 300 of England’s poorest communities with around £6bn channelled through Neighbourhood Boards made up of local people.
• Reed said the money would go directly into local areas rather than “remote consultants”, and that councils and boards should use local suppliers wherever possible.
• He linked Pride in Place to jobs, skills, and long-term regeneration, pointing to examples including Bexhill-on-Sea, Darwen and Carlton.
• Reed said the government will publish guidance later this year to support Neighbourhood Boards in using local suppliers and investing in local businesses.
• He also set out a wider Neighbourhood Guarantee, which he said will establish minimum expectations for clean streets, public services and visible improvements in every neighbourhood.
• Reed said the government will launch a digital tool to show progress in every neighbourhood.
• He said councils will get more powers to shape high streets, including new restrictions on shops that drag down local areas and further action against organised crime.
• He confirmed an expansion of the high streets rental auctions programme with an extra £10m over two years to help councils refurbish and re-let long-term vacant properties.
• Reed also said the government’s devolution agenda will give mayors, councils and communities more powers, including through a “right to request” process for new powers.
• He argued that the aim is to create “change you can feel” in towns, high streets and neighbourhoods across the country.

London (Britain Today News) June 2, 2026 – Communities Secretary Steve Reed told Business in the Community that local businesses are “at the heart of our communities” as he set out the government’s strategy for neighbourhood renewal, high street regeneration and stronger local decision-making. He said the Pride in Place programme and a planned Neighbourhood Guarantee would work together to shift power away from Whitehall and towards local people, councils and businesses.

Reed used the speech to frame the state of local areas as a matter not just of policy, but of identity and confidence. He said Britain is “a nation of a thousand neighbourhoods”, adding that people judge their communities by what they see around them, from clean streets and thriving high streets to empty shops and rising crime. He argued that the government’s response must be to back place-based renewal, support local enterprise and restore pride in towns and city centres.

Business in the Community was praised throughout the speech as an organisation that has spent more than four decades promoting responsible business and community-led change. Reed thanked the charity’s leadership and said its work shows how companies can help neighbourhoods recover social trust and economic momentum. His remarks placed business not as a peripheral player, but as a central partner in a wider programme of place-based renewal.

How will Pride in Place work?

Reed said Pride in Place is designed to channel almost £6bn into nearly 300 of the country’s most deprived communities, with Neighbourhood Boards made up of local people deciding how the money is spent. The aim, he said, is to rebuild trust in places that have been ignored for too long and to ensure investment reflects local priorities rather than centrally imposed solutions.

He said the funding will not be absorbed by “remote consultants” and instead will flow directly into high streets and local economies. According to the speech, the programme is already being shaped through local engagement in places such as Scarborough, Mansfield and Runcorn, where businesses have been used to consult residents and gather priorities. Reed said that approach has created economic benefits through local supply chains as well as social engagement.

The Communities Secretary also pointed to published 10-year plans in some areas, saying they show how tradesmen, electricians and construction firms may be involved in new youth centres, libraries and community CCTV schemes. He cited projects such as a play space in Irvine, a pool in Arbroath and a Youth Zone in Wrexham as examples of the kind of visible improvements the programme is intended to support.

Why are local businesses central?

Reed repeatedly returned to the role of local firms in turning regeneration promises into practical change. He said the government wants Pride in Place to support small businesses and expects Neighbourhood Boards to use local suppliers wherever they can. He added that official guidance will follow later this year to reinforce that approach.

He argued that businesses are not only beneficiaries of regeneration, but also part of the mechanism that makes regeneration possible. In his words, local firms help places thrive, build pride in hometowns and create the supply chains that keep money circulating within a community. Reed said that when businesses back their communities, the result is more than economic activity; it is a sense of belonging and confidence.

The speech also described Business in the Community’s Place programme as proof of concept, saying it shows what can happen when businesses help communities drive change themselves. Reed said the government wants to build on that model and extend it into the Pride in Place programme, particularly where the charity already has a local presence. He said some areas, including Redcar and Cleveland, already have a Business in the Community representative on their board, and he wants to see that pattern repeated elsewhere.

What about jobs and skills?

Another major theme in the speech was employment. Reed said Pride in Place must create work and skills opportunities if it is to succeed, because deprived neighbourhoods are often places where decent work has disappeared or become scarce. He said this is especially important in former industrial areas where people still carry the long-term effects of job losses and economic decline.

He illustrated this point with a personal memory from his own family, saying he still remembers the day his father, grandparents, aunt and uncle lost their jobs when the printing industry collapsed in Watford. Reed said that pain, in his view, remains familiar across Britain’s former industrial heartlands and shows why regeneration must go beyond cosmetic improvements. He argued that local renewal has to include routes into stable employment and long-term skills development.

Reed cited several local examples to show how that might work in practice. He said Bexhill-on-Sea is repurposing a town centre building as a co-working and skills hub, while Darwen is supporting bespoke programmes aimed at closing skills gaps and helping local businesses scale up. He also mentioned Carlton, where the community is developing a skills programme intended to improve employment prospects for offenders. These examples, he suggested, show that local regeneration can support both economic mobility and social rehabilitation.

What is the Neighbourhood Guarantee?

Reed said the government will introduce a new Neighbourhood Guarantee to set out clear expectations for local, regional and national government, with the goal of bringing visible improvements directly to people’s doorsteps. Context published around the speech said the guarantee is intended to improve villages, towns and cities through cleaner streets, filled potholes and stronger access to public services.

In the speech, Reed said the guarantee will cover more than appearances. He said it will include expectations for keeping streets clean, dealing with fly-tipping, filling potholes, cutting back overhanging trees and keeping street lights on at night. He also said it will give people the right to a named police officer so they can report antisocial behaviour and expect action, alongside clearer routes to local services such as GP surgeries, dentists, family hubs, libraries and youth services.

He said a digital tool will be launched so the public can track progress in every neighbourhood. Reed argued that this will make responsibility clearer and allow people to hold decision-makers to account, including Whitehall itself. He said the guarantee is intended to provide a basic standard of service that shows respect for people and respect for their communities.

How will high streets change?

High streets occupied a large part of the speech, with Reed arguing that the state of local centres is often seen as a signal of whether the country is moving forward or backwards. He said people feel a deep sense of loss when formerly thriving places become boarded up, graffiti-covered and economically weakened. He also said the traditional 20th-century model of the high street is not coming back, and that the future must involve a new mix of retail, hospitality, public services and community space.

Reed said empty units should not simply be left unused, and that village, town and city centres should once again become civic spaces where people meet friends and family. He said retail and hospitality must be supported, but so must the conversion of vacant premises into community and public-service uses. His broader argument was that attractive, functional high streets generate consumer confidence, increase footfall and drive more money through local supply chains.

He also criticised the mix of shops that he said can drag down local areas, referring to vape shops, bookmakers and barber shops that appear to have no customers. Reed said the answer is to support good businesses while taking action against those that do not play by the rules. He said councils already have new powers to limit the number of bookmakers in their areas and that further powers will now allow them to restrict the kind of shops that bring an area down.

What action is being taken on crime and vacancies?

Reed said organised crime has been moving onto high streets and that councils previously lacked the powers to deal with it effectively. He said that is now changing with a new High Street Organised Crime Unit in the Home Office, which he presented as part of a wider effort to support legitimate businesses by tackling criminal activity. Reporting around the speech also said the government has announced a £30m High Street organised crime unit in response to investigative reporting on the issue.

Vacant properties were another key target. Reed said the high streets rental auctions programme is being expanded to reduce vacancy rates by allowing councils to take over the lease of long-term empty premises and re-let them at below-market rent. He said the programme has already reduced vacancies in a pilot area, Harworth & Bircotes, from 11% to 3% in its first year. He added that the government will now put an additional £10m into the scheme over the next two years to support more refurbishment grants.

He urged councils to use these powers and said the objective is to turn eyesores into productive spaces for new tenants. In his view, this is not only about tidying up buildings but about making commercial space available to businesses that can contribute to the area’s future. He said the policy is part of a broader plan to support local businesses and drive local change.
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What powers will councils and mayors get?

Reed said the government is also devolving more power to mayors, councils and communities so they can shape economic growth in their own areas. He said local leaders are the drivers of growth because they understand where jobs can be created and how money can be kept in local economies. He pointed to a new right to request process through which mayors can ask for additional powers, which the government can then devolve more easily.

He said powers have already been signed off to extend public transport and provide innovation funding. Reed argued that the wider devolution agenda will help lift areas out of generational stagnation and reduce pressure on welfare budgets by creating more opportunities for work. He framed this as part of a shift away from centralised decision-making and towards a model that gives local institutions more authority and flexibility.

The speech also linked devolution to the future of hospitality and city-centre life. Reed said that in nightlife areas such as Soho, businesses can be vulnerable to groups that try to close them down or stop new venues from opening. He said the new powers created under the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act will allow the Mayor to overrule important licensing decisions so hospitality venues can remain open, create jobs and serve millions of people who want to enjoy the city.

What did Reed say about BIDs?

Business Improvement Districts also featured in the speech, with Reed saying the government wants to let them get on with making their areas thrive. He said the High Streets Strategy will include changes to modernise the BID rule book, simplify voting procedures, strengthen transparency and accountability, and include property owners in the process. He said those changes will unlock significant investment potential.

Reed said the broader political principle is one of respect for communities and the people who live in them. He said that means respecting hometowns, roads, neighbourhoods and high streets, and building policy in partnership with business rather than imposing it from above. In his closing remarks, he said this approach is central to Pride in Place, the Neighbourhood Guarantee, devolution and the government’s high street regeneration agenda.

Why does this matter now?

Reed’s speech comes at a time when the government is trying to frame economic renewal through local identity, neighbourhood services and visible improvement. The combination of Pride in Place, the Neighbourhood Guarantee and expanded devolved powers suggests a policy package designed to make regeneration feel tangible rather than abstract. The speech repeatedly returns to the idea that communities should see improvements in their daily lives, not only in ministerial plans.

The language used was deliberately practical, focusing on clean streets, filled shops, stronger services and more local control. Reed said the government wants “change you can feel” across the country, but made clear that the Pride in Place programme itself will focus on the most deprived neighbourhoods. He argued that the wider principles behind it should influence government policy more generally so that people can live in places they are proud of and where they can thrive.

Taken together, the speech set out a strong link between community regeneration, local business growth and the future shape of Britain’s high streets. Reed presented businesses as partners in delivery, not bystanders, and said that the next stage of government policy will depend on those partnerships working at neighbourhood level. That, he argued, is how the country can move from decline to visible improvement in places that have waited too long for change.