About Pride in Place
In Spring 2024, St Helens Council was successful in securing up to £20m 'endowment style' funding for investment in local priorities over a 10-year period within the Newton-le-Willows area. The programme seeks to empower local communities to identify and deliver projects that will tackle local challenges and inequalities.
On 4 March 2025, the new Government expanded the programme, as part of its rebrand to 'Plan for Neighbourhoods', aligning it with their Government's Missions and introducing 8 broad investment themes. Since, on 25 September 2025, Government published the Pride in Place Strategy, with the subsequent Pride in Place Programme prospectus published on 3 December 2025, detailing the selection of 244 communities for investment, which replaces the previous Plan for Neighbourhoods prospectus and provides guidance for Phase 1 and Phase 2 Pride in Place (PiP) areas.
To affirm, Newton-le-Willows is classed as a Pride in Place Phase 1 beneficiary. The Programme brings together community representatives, businesses, and strategic partners to prioritise funding into areas of local need to build a brighter future for all. Led by a 'Neighbourhood Board', in partnership with St Helens Borough Council, the Newton-le-Willows Neighbourhood Board were tasked with developing a 10-Year Regeneration Plan for Newton-le-Willows and a 4-Year Investment Plan to address deprivation and regeneration of the area.
To know more about the prospectus please read the 'current position' below.
What has been happening?
In May 2024, Chris Hickey was appointed as the Chair for the Newton-le-Willows Neighbourhood Board following the Council (as the accountable body) and local MP appointing to this role. Guidance outlined that Boards must be chaired by a local community leader or local businessperson, and act as a champion for the area and provide leadership for the Neighbourhood Board. Chris is the Managing Director and co-founder of Mercury Hampton, which was formed six years ago and has made his hometown Newton-le-Willows as its base. A former Cowley Sixth Form and St Helens College student, Chris has gone on to be a pioneer in innovation and is passionate about creating a culture that will help people succeed. He has created jobs for the community and Mercury Hampton now has offices around the world.
The first Newton-le-Willows Town Board meeting took place on 28th June 2024. At this meeting, mandated Board members agreed four key items:
- Board composition and recruitment.
- Terms of Reference.
- Recruitment of a 'Project Officer' to support delivery of the initiative.
A procurement exercise to appoint specialist support for Town Board in their development of the Long-Term Plan.
To view the Minutes and Agenda from this meeting, and any future meetings, please visit: Newton-le-Willows Board Meeting Documents.
Over the course of summer 2024, expansion of the Neighbourhood Board was prioritised, with MP David Baines and Town Board Chair Chris Hickey leading the review both community applications and nominations for positions.
The outcome of this recruitment exercise was to recruit seven specialists from the local community to support the Board's focus on delivering the programme according to community need.
The recruitment process for Neighbourhood Board members concluded in October 2024 and the Newton-le-Willows Neighbourhood Board met in its full capacity later in December.
Following the endorsement of the Engagement Strategy in March 2025, a six-week consultation was undertaken between Monday 7 April and Sunday 18 May 2025. The consultation invited contributions from residents, businesses, visitors, and stakeholders to inform the development of the Newton-le-Willows Regeneration Plan Vision Document (PDF, 29 MB). Its purpose was to identify priority areas for investment and to ensure that the projects proposed within the 4-Year Investment Plan are underpinned by evidence of need and supported by the local community.
To view the Newton-le-Willows Pride in Place (formerly know as Plan for Neighbourhoods) public engagement, please visit: Public Engagement.
Following submission of the Regeneration Plan Vision Document in November 2025, the programme is entering into a new phase. The next focus will be a delivery phase following receipt of the initial funding tranche due in April 2026. To ensure the Neighbourhood Board has appropriate knowledge and skills when developing, assessing and selecting projects, a skills analysis was undertaken of the existing Newton-le-Willows Neighbourhood Board, in alignment with the investment themes identified as priorities for investment in Period 1 (from April 2026 to March 2030). Accordingly, the Board has recruited two further community members with specialisms in the priorities identified from public consultation.
To view the Newton-le-Willows Neighbourhood Board members, please visit: Newton-le-Willows Neighbourhood Board.
Current position
The Board, working with the Council, produced a 10-year Regeneration Plan for Newton-le-Willows, setting out the activity that will be pursued to achieve the 3 strategic objectives of this programme:
- Thriving Places
- "Vibrant neighbourhoods and communities with busy high streets"
- "Places should be able to design public services that are accessible, responsive, and tailored to local need".
- Stronger Communities
- "Empower Boards to tackle the root causes, rebuild relationships, and restore a collective sense of belonging to their community"
- "Tackling division will have a direct positive impact on growth"
- Taking Back Control
- "Talent is spread equally but opportunity is not"
- "Empower people to enter the workplace, workers to progress, and businesses to grow".
On 28 November 2025, the Regeneration Plan and 4-Year Investment Plan were officially submitted to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), with full approval received on 23 March 2026. The Plans have been developed with extensive community consultation and utilising socio-economic data and strategic insights and set out three priority investment themes for Period 1 (April 2026-March 2030):
- Regeneration, High Streets and Heritage (20% of the public vote)
- Education and Opportunity (19.5% of the public vote)
- Health and Wellbeing (16.7% of the public vote)
In addition to these three investment themes, the Newton-le-Willows Neighbourhood Board has identified community cohesion as a priority, proposing the development of a 'Community Pot' to enable community capacity building and social infrastructure projects through a competitive grant funding basis.
The Newton-le-Willows Neighbourhood Board are now developing further projects in line with the priority themes to take forward over the coming years. Please view the Regeneration Plan for more details on the fund.
To view more information, visit Newton-le-Willows Neighbourhood Board, Newton-le-Willows Plan for Neighbourhoods News, and Newton-le-Willows Board Meeting Documents.
