Growing up in Sunderland, while the shipyards and coal mines were still at the centre of life, meant I experienced the strength of community, of being part of things, of support for those who were struggling. There were many positive aspects to community in those times, and many, if different, challenges. My Dad was a local councillor, and from the beginning he made sure I understood what was happening to people, and what could be done to support them.

There was little surprise therefore that I returned to Sunderland as a community and youth worker as the shipyards closed. I then went on to help establish the course at the then Polytechnic to train community and youth workers. We recruited people who had not done well at school but had worked in their local community. Their potential was phenomenal, and they contributed to developing new programmes for community development.

That’s because community reminds us that the trendy phrases like ‘levelling up’ have to involve people, not just infrastructure. Of course, infrastructure and good buildings are important, but unless they are developed locally with local people, they may not contribute as much as possible to growth and development.

After decades working in and around public policy, and trying to deliver change, I’ve come to see community as the ‘secret sauce’ of social change. This happens primarily through the development of social capital – networks of relationships that allow social and economic activity to take place. The rise of new technology since my time in Sunderland, and social media have raised new challenges. Yes, new technology can drive improvement in productivity and with new enterprise, but what we have traditionally held as the building blocks of community are even more important. Without those relationships, those connections, then we simply miss out on sustainable growth and development.

More than ever, those relationships and accidents need nurturing – they are not automatic. I learned the importance of care and nurturing for growing vegetables from my Grandfather and his two allotments. People, particularly children, also need support for nurturing. It’s one of the reasons I have emphasised support for the very youngest and why Sure Start was so important in the last Labour Government. Tony Blair set up the Social Exclusion Unit and made his first major speech at the Aylesbury estate, talking of our determination as a government to deal with the sort of problems to be found by people living on the Aylesbury. That lead to the New Deal for Communities, a pioneering programme working with 39,000 communities (with an average of 10,000 residents) with around £50m in each community over 10 years. A partnership model was used for decision-making including local residents, councillors and the police – with local residents taking the majority stake.

After so much policy change and failure over recent year, we often forget that long-term, evidence based practice is possible, and that it works. New Deal for Communities did work: it reduced crime, opened up new opportunities, and saw people’s satisfaction with where they were living rise. The evaluation concluded that “in many respects these neighbourhoods have been transformed in the last 10 years.” The NDC was cost effective too, and we know that such approaches align closely with the Government’s missions, particularly on growth, health and crime.

We can’t simply repeat previous initiatives. Any new neighbourhoods programme has to take account of changes in the population, the many more older people, the role of social media particularly in young people’s lives, the increase in mental health problems, and the major cutback in public service provision. Two thirds of council-funded youth centres have closed in England over the past 14 years, and at least 214 playground facilities have closed since 2014.

Also this time we need to open up opportunities not just in inner cities, but in ex-industrial towns, often at their periphery, and coastal communities. City centre growth doesn’t trickle out to those isolated communities. These are places most affected by de-industrialisation and loss of manufacturing jobs, and changes in tourism patterns. These are places that are now being seduced by the rhetoric of the populist right.

We should not despair. We know what works. It won’t be easy, but by tapping into our belief in the Labour movement of the power of people, with the right support to bring about change, we can work with people to turn their neighbourhood round. The last Labour Government did just that. The Independent Commission for Neighbourhoods wants to point the way for the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods to be able to develop those things, including social infrastructure that can turn their community round, and be safe places offering opportunities for people to be confident that their families will get access to those services that will mean they can make the best of themselves. Join with us on that journey.