In the co-operative movement, we have always believed that by putting power in the hands of our communities, we can turn the page on a Britain in decline and write a new chapter of a country in which communities shape their own futures. Announcements from government this week have begun the job of doing just that.

The sad story of the once-proud British institution, the high street, is now one in which often the only businesses that can thrive are betting shops, payday lenders, and rent-to-buy shops, draining communities of their hard-earned money and much-needed hope. It’s a story people across the country will recognise. Once-loved cafes, corner shops, and independent retailers have left local communities in their droves, only to be replaced by boarded-up shop fronts – while essential shared spaces like the local pub have gone to ruin.

The announcement of the government’s ‘Pride in Place’ programme, along with the new ‘Community Right to Buy’, empowers communities to shape the future of Britain – a turning point for our country and the start of a new era of community empowerment.

Rather than watching from the side-lines, unable to stop social clubs, high streets, pubs and the local non-league football team from shutting up shop, with these new powers people will be able to grab with both hands the future of their communities.

At the Co-operative Party, we have been banging the drum for putting the power to make impactful decisions in the hands of communities. Community Britain is our campaign that shows how communities are already hard at work solving our nation’s most pressing challenges, and reclaims the role of communities as a serious political and economic force – not just a feel-good afterthought.

Communities across Britain are driving the change they need on issues vital to our collective future – whether it’s climate change, economic stagnation, or social cohesion; our communities have the answer.

However, we know that the story of Community Britain is not one in which this pioneering change has come easily. It has come in spite of a system which has been happy to see absentee landlords dictate the future of places they don’t know, and in which profit has been more important than places or people. That is the system we need to change.

The government’s new powers for communities will enable every community to become the master of its collective future, using the blueprint highlighted by our Community Britain campaign and the individuals who make it up.

Much of how our country was run during the decade and a half of decline, from which we are only now emerging, was framed in terms of winners and losers. For one community to win, another must inevitably lose. The ‘Pride in Place’ announcement reframes the political reality for our communities – the government has made a choice to build a Britain in which, through co-operation and community, we look for the solutions in which we can all be winners together.

Our communities win when they can create shared spaces in which we can become friends with our neighbours, when power is shared amongst us so we all have a legitimate say in what happens in the places we call home, and when we all can share in the ownership of the things that matter the most.