Civic Partnership Programme

The Civic Partnership Programme (CPP) is a £12.85m grant-funding programme. It targets areas of need where local authority regeneration objectives align with Mayoral priorities, in order to combat long-standing inequalities and support areas undergoing change.

The programme runs from 2023-24 to 2026-27, providing £12.85m of grant funding as an evolution of the Good Growth Fund and the High Streets for All recovery mission. It is aligned with the Building a Fairer City plan and the Economic Recovery Framework, jointly published by the Mayor and London Councils, as well as national funding objectives.

The programme has two elements:

- CPP Strategy funding allows boroughs and their partners to develop a place-based regeneration strategy, involving local communities and businesses in the most appropriate way to suit the location. These locations were selected based on data available on deprivation, overall climate risk, reduced access to public space, and the scale of future development in the pipeline.

- CPP Exemplar funding will subsequently deliver a number of capital projects, identified through the strategy development. These exemplars will pilot and demonstrate the impact of innovative regeneration approaches on the ground.

Background To The Programme

London’s long-standing inequalities have been exacerbated by COVID-19, and further intensified by the cost-of-living crisis, and the climate and ecological emergencies. London Datastore information indicates significant challenges in how local places and communities across London are affected.

The CPP draws on insights from the Good Growth Fund and lessons from programme delivery across the Good Growth directorate, to ensure effective cross-policy objectives are established, and that the new fund can accommodate a range of multi-faceted activities and can work with a range of partners and their local regeneration aspirations.

Building on effective cross-London coordination, and in response to feedback from boroughs and London Councils, the programme is targeted at places of greatest need aligning with Mayoral and wider London government priorities, specifically;

•   Keeping London Safe – promoting dignity in the public realm
•   Getting London Back on its Feet – recovery, jobs and skills
•   Supporting Young People – opportunities for young Londoners
•   Green New Deal – addressing climate and ecological emergencies and improving air quality
•   Affordable Housing and Physical Delivery.

Intentions Of The Programme

The CPP intends to

support exemplar, transformative area-based projects, that deliver a coordinated plan of activity across a range of priorities.
align advice with capital grant funding in order to have the greatest influence to drive up quality, enable innovation, facilitate engagement, improve outcomes, and build capability.
respond to the impacts of the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and the climate and ecological emergencies in a specific place, requiring concerted action across communities, driving changes in behaviour and new models of collaboration and exchange.
lever in additional investment, including allowing London boroughs to consider how to align with national and other funding allocations

Programme Objectives

Overall objectives across all projects are:

expanding the public realm – creating open, high quality, connected and inclusive public spaces, high streets and green and blue spaces, that are child-friendly and safe for women, girls, and gender diverse people, alongside nurturing welcoming social and cultural infrastructure managed by public and private partners
strengthening representation and authorship in physical regeneration – delivering projects for and with the communities they serve, particularly people from Black and minoritised communities, and younger and older Londoners
addressing the climate and ecological emergencies – strengthening London's climate resilience and tackling environmental inequalities with resource-conscious approaches such as encouraging a circular economy.

These objectives are underpinned by the Mayor’s Good Growth by Design ‘Setting Standards’ workstream. The aim is to implement the principles we established through research on key built-environment issues, including ‘Expanding London’s Public Realm’ and ‘Connective Social Infrastructure’.

Civic Partners and Places

These are the 12 places the Civic Partnership Programme is currently supporting;

Aldgate to Stepney Green	LB Tower Hamlets	Tower Hamlets will utilise the funding received from the GLA’s Civic Partnership Programme Strategy fund to develop a comprehensive strategy exploring improvements to public realm within the busy Whitechapel Road traffic corridor between Aldgate and Whitechapel. Whilst the Whitechapel and Brick Lane District Centres have been subject to a range of Council improvement initiatives over the years, it is recognised that the connection between them can be strengthened through investment in activities that promote an improved public realm and actions to mitigate the impact of climate change, including greening, improvement to walking routes, and social and cultural infrastructure. The Council’s Regeneration Team will lead on engagement with local communities to develop ideas to be submitted to the GLA for consideration for the CPP Exemplar funding.
Brent Cross Fringes	LB Barnet	This area is an area of significant growth and of major opportunity, but currently suffers from a poor quality public realm and is blighted by poor pedestrian routes, little or no cycle routes and facilities, and severed local communities. The strategy will develop a holistic plan to ensure an integrated cross-team approach to delivering existing and new improvements and set out project proposals for shaping the development of the area with engagement from the local community, local businesses, and partners such as TfL, Related Argent, and National Highways. The strategy will make recommendations that will help to create a sustainable transport infrastructure, providing the catalyst for levelling up economic opportunities and accessibility thereby unlocking growth and increasing active travel in one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. The strategy will aim to expand and improve the public realm by providing wider footways, safer at-grade crossing facilities and on-street cycling facilities, working closely with local communities and stakeholders to develop improvements whilst contributing to tackling environmental inequalities. The outcomes of the scheme will be to: improve health amongst the most vulnerable residents, improve access to transport links and green spaces, reduce vehicle emissions and noise, increase walking, cycling and public transport use, improve street safety, reduce crime and connect Brent Cross to the surrounding communities, employment opportunities, educational, social, health and environmental infrastructure.
Golborne & North Kensington	RB Kensington & Chelsea	Proposed development and public realm schemes in North Kensington have, in recent years, suffered from a lack of community buy in and consensus, which has resulted in delays to much needed new homes. The strategy will develop a plan for investing in public realm and community space in the area to celebrate its unique characteristics and assets, including Golborne Market, Trellick Tower, Meanwhile Gardens and a thriving creative industry sector, as well as existing public realm and landscaping projects; using the strategy to build consensus for delivery through co-authorship with the community and build trust and understanding on wider Council projects
Hoxton	LB Hackney	The 2021 Hoxton Socio-economic Insights Study provided a better understanding from people in Hoxton about their everyday lives, their needs and their perceptions on change in the area. Through the work, local people called for democratised public space, citing how community halls and communal areas on estates and on Hoxton Street could be improved to make space for activities that support wellbeing, community cohesion and that embrace the diversity of the neighbourhood. A key finding reflected on how programming for local people could provide indirect solutions to challenges such as social cohesion between neighbours, isolation of the elderly, loss of community bonds and low sense of belonging for young people. The strategy would build on the findings of the Hoxton Socio-economic Insights Study with a focus on access to public realm and social infrastructure, looking at investment into public and green infrastructure around Hoxton Street to foster community involvement as well as working with local institutions to understand how the strategy could support local services and programming. The strategy will also engage with Hoxton Street's businesses and market traders as a key part of Hoxton's network of social infrastructure.
Ilford Arrival	LB Redbridge	Ilford Gateway to Opportunity is about placemaking that informs the reconstruction of the western arrival into Ilford. This strategy will address severance that disconnects, Ilford from Little Ilford, by taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by the Roding Valley, the Elizabeth Line and the ‘lost space’ between planning red lines and project initiatives. It is an opportunity for stakeholders to take a step back and examine how their intervention/investment contributes to a wider whole, a chance to look outwards and explore potential for collaboration around bio-diversity, connections, access and the meanwhile. A chance to enable communities to inform, create, collaborate and manage ‘their place’.
Lewisham Town Centre	LB Lewisham	The strategy will take form of a feasibility study for increasing access to hidden and underutilised rivers and riverbanks in Lewisham Town Centre. It will look at how to integrate and connect them with the public realm improvements being delivered through the Levelling Up Fund to create permeable, inclusive, safe and healthy public realm across the town centre. The study will embed the voices of local residents as well as Lewisham’s Town Centre Partnership organisations (including TfL and Landsec) to understand how best to deliver and manage increased access to green and blue spaces as the town centre’s population continues to grow.
Leyton Sports Ground	LB Waltham Forest	The Leyton Sports Ground Civic Strategy will develop a holistic long-term civic partnership strategy for the future of Leyton Sports Ground as a welcoming space at the heart of the community, through expansion of the public realm and improved integration of the site within the neighbourhood. The strategy will involve imaginative re-use of its iconic heritage assets to secure their viable future and provide inclusive destination spaces for children and young people, sport, wellbeing and food, innovation, and enterprise, all set within a social value action plan to improve the appearance, performance, connectivity, resilience and long-term legacy of the site.
Neasden Town Centre	LB Brent	LB Brent are developing a Placemaking & Sustainability Action Plan for Neasden Town Centre. The Action Plan will: build on past studies and complement work currently being development by Transport colleagues be informed and led by local stakeholders and communities provide a key set of actions and projects that can be delviered throughout 24-27 to support the overarching vision to achieve a fairer, safer, greener, healthier, connected and more diverse Neasden. LB Brent will appoint a suitably qualified multidisciplinary team of community engagement, urban design and sustainability specialists to develop the Action Plan with a view to: Deliver meaningful community engagement; Co-design with local stakeholders and communities a pipeline of projects that can improve the appearance, performance, connectivity, sustainability and resilience of the high street; and Identify initiatives for short/medium/long-term community-led co-delivery.
North End Quarter Fringes	LB Croydon	The London Borough of Croydon is committed to the delivery of sustainable regeneration across Croydon Town Centre. For the Civic Partnerships Programme, the Council would like to specifically focus on the spatial fringes of the North End Quarter; developing a Strategy that explores opportunities and partnerships to improve accessibility and connectivity to key transport nodes, revitalise historic assets, tackle impacts of high retail vacancy, mitigate low air quality and increase provision of green spaces. The Croydon Urban Room (situated in the Whitgift Centre) will host the delivery of a genuinely co-produced strategy, through a series of workshops with participants including local politicians, council officers, landowners and representatives from local cultural organisations, educational institutions, young people and local businesses.
Shepherd's Bush Green	LB Hammersmith & Fulham	Hammersmith and Fulham are developing a public realm strategy which covers a key route through the Borough from Old Oak Common station – White City – Shepherds Bush – Hammersmith. Our phased strategy will first consider the wider connectivity and permeability, before delving into public realm design and activation. This strategy not only looks to understand how people move from A to B, but how civic space is used and how streets and public realm can be more climate resilient and multi-functional. From this overarching strategy, ambitious public realm designs for Shepherds Bush and in particular, Shepherds Bush Green, will be developed, weaving and integrating public and green spaces into the surrounding high street. The outcomes of the scheme will be to: improve health amongst the most vulnerable residents, improve access to transport links and green spaces, reduce vehicle emissions and noise, increase walking, cycling and public transport use, improve street safety, and reduce crime and antisocial behaviour.
Thames Road	LB Barking & Dagenham	Thames Road Transformation will be a co-location exemplar, where industrial (c. 40,000sqm) and residential communities (c.3500 homes) can exist harmoniously. A place strategy is needed to address co-location and to challenge the perception that industrial and residential uses must be separate. The place strategy would be a tool to attract further investment in this location while communicating a cohesive vision for the area. The strategy will set out the vision for Thames Road, embed principles to guide the transformation and articulate an action plan showing various interventions over time that will drive the transformation forward. Interventions are needed to transform both the employment and residential aspects of the development. For residential, early ambitions are to improve the Thames Road streetscape and improve access to essential amenities focused on the social infrastructure village at Bastable Avenue and the Ripple Greenway. For employment, it’s an opportunity to understand ambition of existing businesses and form an approach, including a meanwhile use strategy, to manage the industrial intensification process, and to align growth with economic priorities for the borough.
Walworth	LB Southwark	The Walk Wise Walworth project will carry out an engagement exercise with local groups in the Walworth area, particularly those who may experience concerns about personal safety in quieter areas, and especially those with protected characteristics. The Walworth area has seen wide ranging changes in recent years with the redevelopment of two major housing estates (the Heygate and the Aylesbury) and the introduction of low traffic neighbourhoods in the residential areas either side of the main Walworth Rd corridor. The local economy, in particular being able to provide the majority of goods and services within a short walk of where people live, is vital to the reduction of traffic and dependence on motor vehicles in the long term. Ensuring people can take the maximum advantage of the walking improvements that were provided, and to embed true behaviour change is now a focus for the council. The council would like to understand more clearly the concerns people have and what could be done to alleviate these issues. The council will then produce general design guidance for walking routes that sets out the personal safety concerns people have, citing real-life case studies. A tool kit of potential options would then be set out to address these issues. It is proposed to look at walking routes specifically in the Walworth area to trial the guidance.

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