Left-behind communities need more than devolution – they need central and local government to actually care

One dominant theme in the recent UK election debates has been regeneration and how to tackle regional inequality. Amid Labour’s plans to kickstart economic growth, the party has ditched the phrase “levelling up” and promised instead to “power up Britain” though a proposed take back control act, which would seek to provide a framework for devolution throughout England.

Labour also proposes introducing new local growth plans and a new community right-to-buy scheme. The idea is to enable communities to regenerate empty shops, pubs and community spaces.

The Conservative party, meanwhile, has said it remains committed to Boris Johnson’s flagship levelling-up agenda. It has promised to extend existing funds, add a £20 million endowment fund for local improvement projects and boost initiatives including freeports. More broadly, Rishi Sunak is proposing to expand devolutionary powers, by ensuring that, by 2030, any region or town in England can access a devolution deal.

Politicians speak about “left-behind communities” to refer to those suffering from economic disadvantage and lower living standards in areas characterised by population decline and a lack of infrastructure. Research has long shown that across the world, such communities are less likely to vote in either local or general elections, largely because they feel neglected by the political process.

Scholars talk of “a geography of discontent” and of “regional embitterment” when describing the former industrial heartlands and deprived coastal areas where people, feeling let down, turn against traditional parties in order to express their anger and dissatisfaction with contemporary politics.

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In England, recent waves of devolution to city regional combined authorities have attempted to fix this. Since 2019, the levelling-up agenda has sought to demonstrate a renewed government focus and commitment to areas which felt under-served.

My doctoral research looks at why communities considered left-behind may exclude themselves from engaging with public institutions, such as education or politics. Government policies often fail to sufficiently recognise what geographers and sociologists call “peripherality” and how it leaves people in these communities feeling both physically and symbolically distant from London-centric policy making. This extends to local democratic systems and calls into question the efficacy of devolution as a legitimate form of community power sharing.

Distrust in local politics

For 18 months between May 2022 and October 2023, I conducted community workshops with local residents – 15 teenagers and 25 adults – in Cumbria, north-west England. This county includes some of the most deprived areas in the country. The residents and I explored different strategies for boosting democratic participation in their community. We later then discussed these ideas with Cumberland council.

Some residents felt the term “left behind” was accurate, in describing how they feel about national policies, such as the levelling up agenda. As one person put it: “We can’t compete with London.”

However, they also expressed what they felt to be a certain level of dissonance – many felt unfairly labelled by external parties, who do not understand the strengths, complexities and nuances of their communities. As another resident said: “We’re not deprived like they put out in public. We’re deprived of services but not deprived.” In other words, the problem is not with the people or the communities, but with the lack of services made available to them.

Some residents felt the terms “left out” or “missed out” were more appropriate. To their minds, the focus should be on those who are doing the leaving behind. One resident said she thought the attitude of the local council was: “We’ll just take it away, it doesn’t matter.” This can leave communities feeling like they have little power or control in making positive changes in their local area.

The dominant narratives about local policy leaders, I encountered, revealed a symbolic distance from the local political system, similar to that often felt towards Westminster and Whitehall. Local politicians might be physically much nearer. Yet the people I spoke to felt that these leaders were not interested in the views of communities they purport to represent. The residents felt that their politicians’ decisions are predetermined. As one person put it: “They’re not very inclusive and there’s no transparency. It’s all cloak and dagger. You’ll find out what’s happening after it’s happened.”

Many people felt that local politicians mostly act in their own best interests which do not necessarily reflect the needs of the community. As a result, people feel they cannot be trusted. “They promise you the world and say that they’re going to,” one resident said, “but it never happens.”

Highlighting this matters because whatever symbolic distance communities might feel towards their local democratic system translates into disengagement with local politics. People abstain from voting. They do not engage with consultation exercises. In one community I looked at, Kells and Sandwith, voter turnout was 29.1%, well below the regional average 36.1%.

Research increasingly shows that existing models of devolution are not a proxy for authentic, grassroots community engagement. Political theorist James Hickson writes about the need for “double devolution”. The idea is to get more people to participate in civic life, more hyper-local approaches, developed at the neighbourhood level, may be needed.

Locally informed policy and spending decisions are more likely to benefit those in the immediate community. Yet, people living in low-income communities along England’s coasts, in particular, do not necessarily trust whatever existing local democratic institutions there are, to accurately represent their best interests, any more than they do, central government. Devolution alone is not the answer to people feeling disenfranchised.

Suzanne Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.