Guidance

Pride in Place Programme: Phase 2 expansion place selection methodology note

Published 20 March 2026

Applies to England

Overview of the programme

The Pride in Place Programme (PiPP) is a UK-wide programme providing a 10-year investment to disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Phase 1 is providing 75 towns across the UK with up to £20 million each (totalling £1.5 billion) over 10 years. Phase 2 is providing 169 neighbourhoods across Great Britain with up to £20 million over 10 years.

This expansion to Phase 2 funds an additional 40 neighbourhoods in England with their own £20 million over 10 years. The programme aims to build strong, resilient and integrated communities that are essential for achieving the government’s Five Missions and fulfilling the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change.

Methodological principles

The methodology follows these core principles:

• Focus on need: The methodology uses a composite measure of deprivation (Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)) and community need (Community Needs Index (CNI)), to identify areas with the poorest social and economic outcomes and create a single index of need. Deprivation refers to a lack of material resource and access to opportunities, while community need captures challenges such as poor access to services, limited community infrastructure, and low civic participation.
• Exclusion of areas funded in previous rounds: Funding is directed to areas not already supported in Phase 1 or Phase 2 to spread funding equitably.
• Geographic spread: A parliamentary constituency cap is applied across all rounds to broaden geographic distribution, so that only one neighbourhood per parliamentary constituency is funded.

To ensure funding is targeting neighbourhoods with high disadvantage and low community cohesion, we introduce an additional principle to the selection methodology for this expansion:

• Community cohesion: A new community cohesion filter ensures that funding is directed to local authorities where community cohesion is weakest, as measured by the Community Life Survey (CLS). Only Middle layer Super Output Areas (MSOAs) within the 20% of local authorities with the lowest cohesion scores are eligible for selection in the expansion. This ensures that investment is targeted at the neighbourhoods most in need of support to build resilient communities.

Place selection methodology

England will receive funding for 40 neighbourhoods. For the purposes of selecting places, “neighbourhoods” are approximated as 2021 MSOAs. The funded MSOAs are selected from the 6,856 MSOAs in England using a combined IMD and CNI score, filtered by community cohesion and applying a cap so that only one MSOA is funded in each Parliamentary Constituency. The methodology follows 5 steps:

Step 1: Rank all MSOAs according to their combined IMD and CNI need score

The Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025 (IMD25) is published for each 2021 Lower layer Super Output Area (LSOA). The IMD has been updated from the 2019 edition used at Phase 2 to the 2025 edition, to incorporate the most up to date data on deprivation. IMD25 scores are aggregated to MSOA-level using population-weighted averages of their constituent 2021 LSOAs.

The Community Needs Index 2023 (CNI), produced by Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OCSI) and Local Trust, is published at 2021 LSOA level. CNI scores are aggregated to MSOA-level using the same population-weighted averaging method as used for IMD25.

IMD and CNI scores are standardised using z-scores:

Standardised IMD z-score for MSOA = (MSOA IMD score – Mean IMD) / Standard Deviation

Where:

• Mean = Mean average IMD score across all MSOAs in England
• Standard Deviation = Standard Deviation of IMD scores across all MSOAs in England

The same calculation is used to create standardised z-scores for the CNI.

The two z-scores are added together with equal weighting to form a combined index for each 2021 MSOA. MSOAs are then ranked in descending order, from most in need to least in need.

Step 2: Apply an across-round parliamentary constituency cap

All MSOAs are assigned to a 2024 Parliamentary Constituency (PC). While in most cases MSOAs fall exactly into one PC, some MSOA boundaries span across PC boundaries. MSOAs are therefore assigned to a PC based on the location of the MSOA’s population-weighted centroid, as published by the ONS. The population-weighted centroid is a single point that represents the centre of population distribution within a geographic area. Each MSOA is allocated to the single PC that its centroid falls into.

To ensure geographic spread, an across-round parliamentary constituency cap of one is applied. All MSOAs in a PC which has already received PiPP funding in either Phase 1 or Phase 2 is excluded from receiving additional funding in this expansion, using the following attribution rules:

• Phase 2 funding was allocated directly to MSOAs. Each Phase 2 MSOA is attributed to a single PC using the population-weighted centroid method described above.
• Phase 1 funding was allocated using Built-Up Areas (BUAs) rather than MSOAs. Each Phase 1 BUA is attributed to one or more PC using the location of their constituent MSOA’s population-weighted centroids. This is consistent with the rest of Phase 2, and full details are found in Step 5 of the Phase 2 methodology note.

Step 3: Rank local authorities by community cohesion using the Community Life Survey

Every local authority district in England is ranked according to a question from the Community Life Survey 2024/25 (CLS):

“To what extent do you agree or disagree that people in your neighbourhood pull together to improve the neighbourhood?”

Using data from the most recent published survey wave, the percentage of respondents who responded “definitely agree” or “tend to agree” is calculated for each local authority. Local authorities are then ranked in ascending order, from those with the lowest score to the highest.

Step 4: Apply the community cohesion filter

MSOAs are attributed to local authorities using an MSOA to local authority district best-fit lookup. The 20% of local authorities with the weakest community cohesion (i.e. the lowest-ranking authorities from Step 3) are identified. Any MSOA that does not fall within one of these local authorities is excluded from the eligible pool.

Step 5: Select the 40 most in-need MSOAs eligible for selection

From the remaining pool of eligible MSOAs, the 40 most in-need MSOAs are selected in order of need (most to least), based on the combined need index described in Step 1.

List of Places

Local authority	Number of neighbourhoods	Neighbourhood names
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole	3	West Howe, Boscombe West, Hamworthy West
Medway	3	Luton, Twydall, Rede Common
Barking and Dagenham	2	Mayesbrook Park & Rippleside, Central Park & Frizlands Lane
Brent	2	St Raphaels, Harlesden
Coventry	2	Tile Hill, Hillfields
Enfield	2	Lower Edmonton South, Enfield Wash
Ipswich	2	Stoke Park, Whitehouse
Luton	2	Central Luton, Marsh Farm
Newcastle upon Tyne	2	Fawdon South, Throckley & Newburn
Slough	2	Britwell, Langley Foxborough
Ashfield	1	Hucknall Westville
Bexley	1	Slade Green & Crayford Marshes
Birmingham	1	Handsworth West
Cannock Chase	1	Cannock North
Croydon	1	University Hospital & Queen’s Road
Derby	1	New Normanton
Exeter	1	Heavitree East & Whipton South
Gloucester	1	Matson & Robinswood
Greenwich	1	Thamesmead Birchmere Park
Manchester	1	Moss Side West
Newham	1	Little Ilford East
Rushmoor	1	Mayfield
Sandwell	1	Tividale
Stevenage	1	St Nicholas
Stoke-on-Trent	1	Bradeley & Chell Heath
Thurrock	1	Tilbury
Walsall	1	Brownhills
Wolverhampton	1	Waterloo Road