Rebuilding the social fabric of this country must be a national priority
5 min read
Shared public spaces like libraries, parks and sports clubs help create strong communities. No longer can they be seen as nice-to-haves.
The work of councils reaches into almost every part of people’s lives.
It is there when a child needs protection, when someone needs care, when a family needs a home, when a road needs repairing, when a library gives someone a quiet place to learn, when a local business needs support, or when a community is hit by crisis.
That is why the new report by the Local Government Association (LGA), LG2040: Forces Shaping Local Government, matters. Published today (Tuesday), it looks ahead to the forces that will shape councils and communities over the next 15 years.
Its message is clear. Unless we act now, the country risks entering the 2030s and 2040s with weaker communities, higher demand for crisis services and a growing gap between what residents need and what councils can deliver.
One warning stands out. The loss of social infrastructure is becoming one of the biggest risks facing the country.
For too long, the places and relationships that hold communities together have been treated as valuable, but only if budgets allow. Libraries, parks, youth centres, leisure facilities, community hubs, sports clubs and shared public spaces cannot be seen as optional extras.
Social infrastructure is the foundation of strong communities. It is the quiet, everyday network that reduces loneliness, supports families, keeps young people engaged and helps older people stay connected. It is often where problems are spotted early, long before they become crises.
When these places disappear, the need does not disappear with them. It shows up in the NHS, in policing, in mental health services, in housing need, in community safety and in rising demand for urgent support. We pay for the loss many times over.
The pressures facing communities are changing. People are living longer. Young people face more insecure prospects. Health inequalities remain deeply rooted in some places. Climate shocks, economic insecurity and falling trust in institutions do not arrive neatly one at a time. They collide.
When they do, the strength of a community’s social fabric often determines whether a challenge is managed early or becomes a crisis.
That is why prevention cannot just be a slogan. It has to mean real places, real services and real relationships.
It is the library that keeps a teenager learning. The park that supports physical and mental health. The community centre that gives an older person somewhere to go. The youth worker who notices when something is wrong.
At its best, local government helps stop people falling through the cracks in the first place. But councils cannot rebuild the foundations of community while being forced to spend more and more of their budgets responding to acute need.
The current model is not sustainable. Councils cannot keep absorbing rising demand for care, children’s services, homelessness support and other urgent help while the funding, flexibility and certainty needed to prevent demand are squeezed.
That means a new settlement for local government.
Councils need sustainable long-term funding so they can plan ahead. They need greater freedom to join up services around residents, rather than work around Whitehall departments. They need the ability to invest in prevention, not just manage crisis. And they need national government to recognise social infrastructure as essential to the country’s resilience.
This should be an urgent priority for any prime minister who wants to improve public services and strengthen communities.
National reform will only work if it is rooted in neighbourhoods, towns and cities, and if councils are treated as partners with the tools to support people earlier.
This is also a significant moment for local government itself. Councils are facing major structural change through local government reorganisation, rising demand, tight budgets and growing expectations from residents. Recent local elections have brought a wider range of political voices into town halls, reflected in the growth of political groups at the LGA.
The LG2040 report is not a prediction of decline. It is a warning that the choices made now will shape the country we become by 2040.
Across the country, councils are already finding new ways to support people earlier, use data better, work with residents and build stronger local partnerships. But local innovation cannot replace national reform.
If we want a country where people feel connected, supported and confident about the future, we have to invest in the places and services that make that possible. We have to stop treating libraries, parks, youth services and community spaces as expendable, and start seeing them as part of how we keep people well, safe and connected.
As I begin my term as Chair of the LGA, I want to champion the role of councils in shaping the future of this country. Local government is not simply there to pick up the pieces when other systems fail. It is where prevention, resilience and trust can be built in people’s everyday lives.
That is the future we should be building towards. And it starts by rebuilding the social fabric of this country.
Cllr Eamon O’Brien is Chair of the Local Government Association
