Dedicated Support for Rural communities to end

Last week the Government advised Local Authorities that the UK Shared Prosperity Fund is coming to an end in March 2026, as set out in the latest Spending Review document. The Government will be providing targeted, long-term local growth and communities funding to support regional growth and deprived communities across the UK.

The UKSPF was a £2.6 billion Fund designed to succeed and improve upon EU structural funds. Places were empowered to identify and build on their own strengths and needs at a local level, focused on building pride in place and increasing life chances, and delivered through 3 investment priorities: communities and place, local businesses and people and skills.

The Spending Review also means the end of the Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF) in March 2026, designed as a top up to the UKSPF to support activities that specifically address the particular challenges rural areas face including:

• lower productivity rates
• poorer connectivity
• poorer access to key services

In total £143 Million was allocated to rural councils through the Rural England Prosperity Fund supporting rural communities.

This follows announcements to the withdrawal of funding to support Neighbourhood Plans, as detailed on the Locality website.

Locality is the national membership network supporting local community organisations to be strong and successful and provided dedicated support to Neighbourhood Planning groups through funding made available by the Government.

The Locality website includes the following statement:

**IMPORTANT NOTICE**

MHCLG has informed us that, as a result of the spending review, they cannot proceed with commissioning new neighbourhood planning support services for 2025 onwards. Unfortunately, this means that we cannot open to applications for new grants or technical support. We are able to complete all technical support packages agreed by MHCLG by the end of March 2025 and we have until the end of March 2026 to do so depending on the timetable for each package.

Neighbourhood planning is an undeniable success, with over 2,400 communities having initiated neighbourhood plans and more than 1,000 plans having been successful at referendum. We are proud to have supported so many groups through the process. We know it will be difficult for some groups to progress their plans in the light of this news, please contact us if you wish to discuss how you can progress your neighbourhood plan or realise your aspirations.

The Government Minister for Housing and Planning, Mathew Pennycook confirmed in a recent Parliamentary question:

‘The government remains of the view that neighbourhood plans can play an important role in the planning system. Communities can continue to prepare neighbourhood plans where they consider that doing so is in their best interests.’

RSN Comment

The RSN is concerned about the lack of dedicated funding to support the rural economy, especially given productivity in rural areas is lower than the national average, and wages earned in the rural economy are also lower.

Neighbourhood plans form an important part of the planning process and enable communities to have their say on shaping their local area for the future, the lack of capacity funding to support the development of these, will have an impact on the ability of communities to put together these key planning documents.