Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced £1bn towards 45 further places becoming eligible to receive money from the government's Towns Fund in England as part of his Budget. He has also unveiled a promised new tranche of Levelling Up funding, which is available to other areas.

Alongside the Towns Fund, the government has made provisions for a further tranche of Levelling Up funding, which will be open to single tier councils and district councils in two tier areas.

The government has launched a new £150 million Community Ownership Fund to help ensure that communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can support and continue benefiting from the local facilities, community assets and amenities most important to them.

A podcast and accompanying book called High Street Tales have been released as part of the High Street Heritage Action Zones Cultural Programme, which is led by Historic England

A backbench-initiated debate has been held in the Commons to discuss progress with the government's £3.6 billion project to provide funds for 101 'left behind' towns, to improve their local economy, connectivity, social and cultural facilities and built environment.

A campaign for greater neighbourhood-level democracy formed in the Autumn in Wigan last year has signed up a growing number of supporters seeking more empowerment for citizens to take responsibility for community action at the local level

The government has launched consultation on draft revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework and a new draft National Model Design Code

Local communities will be at the heart of plans to make sure that new developments in their area are beautiful and well-designed, says the government in its response to the report it received from the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission

Newham Council will join Sheffield in having a referendum this year on changing to a more traditional democratic Committee system of governance, rather than a Mayoral or Cabinet-led structure of the kind that have been widely introduced in recent years

The lively discussion of issues raised by the collapse of the Debenhams Group is continuing, following the deal for online retailer Boohoo to take on the brand, but not the stores or retail operations. Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee has joined the discussion led by her colleague John Harris

The really significant loss to over 100 towns from the impending closure of the whole set of Debenhams department stores, explored in an item on the Civic Revival website in December, has now become critical

The public will be able to convert vacant plots of land and derelict buildings into new homes or community spaces, under plans announced on 16 January by the Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick

Volunteers are to open the Talking Tree, a climate emergency centre in Staines, the second (after Ilford) of many similar venues planned for places across England & Wales from Doncaster to Swansea.

The shared initiative by MPs Jon Cruddas and Danny Kruger from both major parties to enhance community empowerment and win more resources for localism formed the basis of a House of Commons debate on January 11

The government has announced an expansion of the 'Dormant Assets Scheme' to help unlock over £800 million value to the benefit of communities across the UK.

A new report has received cross-party backing for its call for ministers to hand power and capital back to communities after the pandemic to repair Britain’s fraying social fabric

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has announced 34 community projects which will be receiving grants worth almost £700,000 through his Grow Back Greener Fund with a focus on areas of deprivation where residents are less likely to have access to green space.

The Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF) administered by Historic England has announced support for ten new projects through the Transforming Places Through Heritage programme (TPTH)

The Government is to provide up to £830m in allocations from the Future High Streets Fund, which it says will support areas to recover from the pandemic. The money will go to 72 areas across England, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick announced on 26 December 2020.

Answers to questions in Parliament and a year end statement from the Towns Fund Delivery Partner team, have indicated the state of progress with the government's £3.6 billion Towns Fund Levelling Up project, and how individual submissions are being managed from the 101 eligible towns.

A number of schemes are being announced about the future use of the substantial Debenhams department stores in 100 plus towns around the country, following the collapse of the business at the beginning of December, although the prospects for many are unclear.

In a move that bucks a trend of retrenchment amongst local news media, The Oldham Times will become a six-days-a-week print title from January, returning a daily newspaper to the borough after an absence of three years

Proposals for a waterside events centre, year-round surf resort and a revamp of Southport Pleasureland featuren a £50m Sefton Council funding submission to the Government's £3.6bn Towns Fund aimed at rejuvenating town centres across England.