Why a Burnham government should be good news for community spaces

“If you deliver through people and places that are trusted, you’ve then got a chance to make a difference.”

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These were the words of Andy Burnham last October as he gave the Theos Annual Lecture in Methodist Central Hall in Manchester. As he now prepares to become Prime Minister this summer, his rise to power should give all those who believe in the power of community spaces cause for real hope.

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In his Theos lecture Burnham argued that “the world has become more complex, but the way we run things has not”, with a “top-down, soulless, tick-box system” that “hammers the hope out of people”. “At the heart of this problem” he said, “is the demise of the local – local agency and local action”. Instead he called for “a new vision for local state with trust, community, faith, belief, connection at its heart”, asking “if we worked from the bottom up, wouldn’t we come up with a more humane way of doing things?”

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If this rhetoric seems familiar, it’s because it was exactly the same argument he offered in his first major speech since launching his bid to replace Kier Starmer as Prime Minister on 29th June. In this speech he promised to “rewire Britain” by “taking power out of the centre and putting it in the hands of the people and places who can use it best...creating a new sense of agency, possibility and hope flowing around the country”.

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This consistent theme of rebuilding hope through the power of local people and local places chimes perfectly with the story of the Warm Welcome Campaign, a movement of now more than 6,300 community spaces which former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called a ‘Chain of Hope’.

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And there is every reason to think that this is more than just empty words from Andy Burnham, because as Mayor of Greater Manchester he has practiced what he preaches on community spaces. His flagship Live Well Programme has drawn resource from the Lottery but also from Health and Employment support budgets to create local networks of community spaces where people can access the support and resource they need to thrive.

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Through this programme, Burnham has tasked every Borough in Greater Manchester with identifying and supporting more than 100 community-led spaces, creating a web of local support across the whole region. The programme has also invested in leadership development and capacity building for these spaces, bringing faith and civil society leaders together with those from the public sector to learn from each other. It is the Gold Standard when it comes to place-based support for community spaces, and it’s not a surprise that Greater Manchester has one of the highest concentrations of registered Warm Welcome Spaces of anywhere in the country.

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Indeed Burnham himself is no stranger to Warm Welcome Spaces, having visited one at Longsight Library and Learning Centre with Warm Welcome Ambassador Gaby Roslin. There he was completely at ease chatting to everyone from children attending free music lessons to older residents who called the library a home from home. Afterwards he described Warm Welcome Spaces as “playing a vital role in connecting communities”.  

When the former Chief Executive of Greater Manchester Combined Authority Caroline Simpson now set to become Burnham’s Deputy Chief of Staff and Head of No. 10 North, there is every reason to believe that we could see the principles of the Live Well Programme spread more widely across the country, with other Combined Authorities and Local Authorities encouraged and resourced to create powerful networks of community spaces in their areas. At the Warm Welcome Campaign this is a vision that we stand ready and primed to help enable and realise, as part of our mission to make sure that 100% of the UK population has great local access to thriving community spaces.

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No doubt Andy Burnham faces a daunting set of issues as he surveys the final steps on the path to becoming Prime Minister. But if he can retain his belief in the power of local people and local agency, then there’s every chance that his leadership can begin to revive the hope this country so desperately craves.

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