Published on 24 July 2024
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Private space, public good: working together to deliver social infrastructure 

Based on their new report, Rosa Marks and Owen Garling discuss the role that the private sector can also play alongside public sector and civil society organisations in the provision of social infrastructure – the spaces and places that people use to come together.

Social infrastructure — those vital spaces and places that bring people together and sustain communities — is often seen as the responsibility of the public sector. However, our previous research with Power to Change, the British Academy, and the Institute for Community Studies, found not only that people use both privately and publicly owned spaces for social connection, but also that they rarely distinguish between types of ownership when they think about the value of these kinds of facility.

With this research project, funded by and delivered in partnership with Power to Change, we set out to explore when and how the private sector provides social infrastructure and how it works with the public sector and communities to deliver these spaces.  

In our latest report, Private space, public good: working together to deliver social infrastructure, we highlight two ways in which the private sector is involved in the provision of social infrastructure. 

First, we consider what we call ‘unplanned’ social infrastructure. These are those spaces that are not primarily designed as social infrastructure yet provide a social function for the communities that use them, such as supermarkets, pubs, and gyms. Using the concept of strong and weak ties, we explore retail spaces as an example of ‘unplanned’ social infrastructure and find that a wide range of social interactions occur in these spaces with numerous benefits for communities and the businesses alike.  

The now-demolished Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, for example, was an important social hub and support network for London’s Latin American community, with traders daily providing information, helping with translations and phone calls, and directing new arrivals towards jobs and accommodation. Those interviewed described the shopping centre as a “community” or big “family” – a friendly, supportive environment that attracted people from all backgrounds.

We look also at ‘planned’ social infrastructure – those spaces that are designed with the purpose of providing space for people to meet and connect. We identify examples of where the private sector is enabling community groups to use new or existing privately owned spaces, either temporarily through ‘meanwhile use’ or on a more permanent basis. We also highlight examples of partnerships between the private sector and community-led organisations to take on buildings which can provide social infrastructure.  

For example, in Plymouth, Nudge Community Builders, a community business leading the regeneration of Union Street, partnered with the private creative workspace company Eat Work Art to buy an iconic local landmark, the Millennium Building. The partners are working with local people to shape the use of the building to deliver social and economic value, and the building is now in an asset lock, meaning it is safeguarded in perpetuity for community benefit. 

While the motivations of the private sector to provide social infrastructure vary, we found that there is growing recognition of the commercial value of this approach. Asset owners and developers, in particular, are recognising that allowing spaces to be used for social connection and to meet community needs increases their importance and use over the long term, creating a sustainable return on their investment. They also act as destination spaces, increasing footfall and dwell time in the local area, which has a knock-on benefit for surrounding businesses.  

So, what does this mean for an incoming government that used the recent King’s Speech to set out their plans for “empowering communities to transform their neighbourhoods, high streets and important community assets” and working with the private sector to “crowd-in” investment where it is needed? 

Crucially, our research demonstrates that the private sector can contribute to providing social infrastructure, and this is especially important to recognise in a context of significant constraints on public investment. Private provision can provide significant – and currently underappreciated – opportunities for policymakers concerned by the steady decline of social spaces, particularly in poorer communities. What is also clear from our research is that to provide social spaces that are sustainable in the long term and are valuable to local people, the private sector must actively pursue partnerships with the public sector and community-led organisations, who are best placed to understand and deliver on local needs. 

To achieve this, we identify four guiding principles for the different stakeholders involved in developing and maintaining good social infrastructure: 

  • Meaningful partnerships between the private sector, public sector, and local communities are key to the successful provision of social infrastructure because they enable a greater understanding of what spaces are needed and account for their long-term maintenance and management. 
  • The provision and maintenance of social infrastructure requires organisations to adopt a place-making approach underpinned by a broad definition of social infrastructure that takes into account the range of spaces that communities value, including those that are privately owned. 
  • Greater attention must be paid to developing social infrastructure with long-term maintenance in mind, with early consideration of how these spaces are funded and managed and how their function as social infrastructure can be safeguarded in the long term. 
  • Investment in social infrastructure can deliver social and economic value, leading to greater and more sustainable returns, and should therefore be understood as of significant potential commercial value. 

Our report also lays out a series of recommendations to support these principles and enable the private sector, local authorities, and central government to take a more strategic and coherent approach to the creation and maintenance of social infrastructure. 

In too many places, social infrastructure is deteriorating or disappearing, with significant consequences for local communities across the country. By broadening our understanding of the agents responsible for social infrastructure and highlighting creative approaches to its provision, we hope to encourage a new model of social infrastructure delivery that foregrounds collaboration between the private sector, public sector, and local communities, and which would lead to better quality, and better maintained, community spaces. 

Read report: Private space, public good: working together to deliver social infrastructure


The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.

Authors

Rosa Marks

Research Assistant

Rosa is a Research Assistant at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy. She is currently researching the role of the private sector in the provision of social infrastructure. She previously...

Owen Garling

Knowledge Transfer Facilitator

Owen Garling is the Bennett Institute’s Knowledge Transfer Facilitator and he provides an important conduit between our own researchers and policymakers in the UK and internationally. His work helps to...

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