Liverpool City Region Combined Authority joins call for a Community Wealth Fund

Liverpool City Region has added its voice to the call for a Community Wealth Fund, a new independent endowment to invest in the most ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods in the country.

It has joined with ten other authorities joining a growing alliance of over 250 organisations supporting the call for significant new investment to enable communities to transform their neighbourhoods.

The ten authorities are:

• Liverpool City Region Combined Authority


• Durham County Council


• Birmingham City Council


• Peterborough County Council


• Cambridgeshire County Council


• Preston City Council


• Newcastle City Council


• Sunderland City Council


• Thanet District Council


• Calderdale Council

The Community Wealth Fund would take a radically different approach to most funding bodies, with communities at a neighbourhood level supported to take spending decisions. Awards of £2m would be made to each community to spend over the long term (10-15 years), building community resilience and strength and increasing their confidence and capacity to turn their areas around.

The Alliance is calling on government to make the proposal a reality, by releasing the next wave of dormant, or orphaned, assets from stocks, shares, bonds and insurance policies to create a £4bn endowment.

Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region said: “Establishing the Community Wealth Fund would be a radical step to allow local people to make important decisions to shape the future of their communities. After a decade of austerity and challenges of Covid-19, this new Fund would be a fantastic way of helping our communities recover.”

Margaret Bolton Director of Policy at Local Trust, who provide the secretariat to the Alliance, said: “Local authorities are perfectly placed to help make the Community Wealth Fund a reality, and we’re keen to see support for the idea building across all tiers of local government.

“The pandemic has brought home to all of us the importance of place and the value of community action and working together. A Community Wealth Fund would provide long-term funding and support for such activity, helping to create stronger and more resilient communities, able to work with their local councils to meet community needs and respond to community aspirations, building community wealth and creating a better future for the communities that feel most left behind”.

The proposal has the support of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods. Launched earlier this summer, the Group was set up to find long-term policy solutions to improve the social and economic prospects of the 225 wards identified as being both the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country and those with the least community provision. They are neighbourhoods which lack places for people to meet, community activities and have low levels of digital connectivity and poor local transport.

These wards have worse social and economic outcomes than neighbourhoods that are similarly deprived but which have such provision. Pre-pandemic the gap was growing and is now likely to grow even further.

Now, the Community Wealth Fund Alliance is asking more councils to add their name and support the call for investment in the most ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods.

For more information about the Community Wealth Fund, or to sign your organisation up to the Alliance CLICK HERE

About the Community Wealth Fund Alliance

The Community Wealth Fund Alliance (CWFA) is a group of over 250 organisations calling for the establishment of a Community Wealth Fund to invest in the most ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods across England. The funders of the Alliance are Tudor Trust, Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, Friends Provident Foundation, John Ellerman Foundation, People’s Health Trust, NCVO and Local Trust.

How are ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods identified? ‘Left behind’ neighbourhoods are identified by combining data from the Community Needs Index (CNI) and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The CNI identifies areas that have poor connectivity (physical and digital), low levels of community engagement and a lack of community spaces and places. The IMD ranks areas based on their levels of social and economic deprivation. Neighbourhoods that rank amongst the most deprived 10% in both the IMD and the CNI are classified as ‘left behind’, numbering 225 places in total

About the Community Wealth Fund Alliance

The Community Wealth Fund Alliance (CWFA) is a group of over 250 organisations calling for the establishment of a Community Wealth Fund to invest in the most ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods across England. The funders of the Alliance are Tudor Trust, Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, Friends Provident Foundation, John Ellerman Foundation, People’s Health Trust, NCVO and Local Trust.

How are ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods identified? ‘Left behind’ neighbourhoods are identified by combining data from the Community Needs Index (CNI) and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The CNI identifies areas that have poor connectivity (physical and digital), low levels of community engagement and a lack of community spaces and places. The IMD ranks areas based on their levels of social and economic deprivation. Neighbourhoods that rank amongst the most deprived 10% in both the IMD and the CNI are classified as ‘left behind’, numbering 225 places in total

For more information about the Community Wealth Fund, or to sign your organisation up to the Alliance CLICK HERE