A major new report to the UK Government puts New Towns back in the spotlight - key to delivering 1.5 million homes and tackling regional inequalities. Crucially, it makes culture central to their success. That shift could transform how we plan and sustain places in the UK.

At the 2025 Labour Party Conference, the UK Government has announcement £25 million over three years for six mayoral regions - a significant boost for creative industries. Beyond the headline, the question for us at Culture Commons is: how does this investment advance the case for cultural devolution?

On 25 September 2025, the government launched its Pride in Place Strategy as part of the Plan for Change. What began as a pilot is now a flagship national policy - backed with long-term funding and new powers for communities.

Culture Commons has been attending a series of high level roundtables hosted by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to help support the development of the emergent Local Government Outcomes Framework (LGOF).

Dr James Hickson (Heseltine Institute) and Dr Jack Newman (University of Bristol) — both contributors to our flagship Future of Cultural Decision Making in the UK programme — have published a new article in The Political Quarterly. The piece digs into how different “justifications” for devolution often pull against each other, leaving ambiguity and frustration in their wake. We consider the potential implications for culture, creativity and heritage.

New Towns Taskforce report drawing on Culture Commons policy cited in an evidence session in a cross-party House of Lords committee.

The UK Government has today published the ‘English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill’ - a game-changing moment for local decision making across England.

Owen Garling and Professor Michael Kenny from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge share insights from their ongoing research project examining 'cultural infrastructure'.

In this guest blog, commissioned as part of Culture Commons’ open policy development programme on devolution and increased local decision making, Kathryn Welch reflects on her experience as Programme Lead for the Culture Collective programme, a powerful network of 26 community-rooted creative projects across Scotland initiated by Creative Scotland.

In this guest blog, David Jubb reflects on his work with Citizen’s in Power, a not for profit founded in March 2023 to promote the value of citizen-led cultural decision making.

Culture Commons publishes a new Insight Paper laying out a variety of perspectives from some of the UK’s largest Grant Giving Bodies shared at a special roundtable as part of a major open policy development programme exploring cultural devolution.

Today we publish a new Discussion Paper by Professor Leila Jancovich (University of Leeds), Dr Lucrezia Gigante (Culture Commons) and Dr Claire Burnill-Maier (Culture Commons) that unpacks some of the main models that have supported people to participate in decision making about the cultural life of their local area.

Over the last nine months, the Culture Commons team has been working closely with leading universities and research institutions across the UK to develop new research exploring devolution and increased local decision making as part of a major four-nations open policy development programme. Today we make all that research publicly available to uphold out commitment to open and transparent policy making.

This June, Culture Commons collaborated with partners our partners at the University of Dundee and Culture Counts on an inspiring two-day visit to Dundee as part of 'the future of local cultural decision making' - a major four-nations research and open policy development programme.

At the end of May, Culture Commons teamed up with our partners at Belfast City Council to co-convene a series of activities across Northern Ireland as part of our flagship open policy development programme for 2024 looking at cultural devolution.