Social inclusion UK news

• How heat from old coal mines became a source of local pride in this northern English town – new study, theconversation.com (Nov 20, 2025)
• Cutting home insulation funding will imperil UK’s climate goals, Reeves told, theguardian.com (Nov 08, 2025) — Energy firms and charities urge chancellor to avoid short-term fix that could also harm low-income households
• The UK’s wealth ‘timebomb’ – and how to defuse it, theconversation.com (Nov 05, 2025)
• The London solar project slashing bills for vulnerable residents, positive.news (Nov 03, 2025)
• Building a Connected Scotland, scottishcommunityalliance.org.uk (Oct 30, 2025) — Why Local Hubs Matter
• What if dinner was public infrastructure?, Sower (Oct 29, 2025)
• ‘Hopeful and imaginative’: introducing the UK’s ‘best’ new building, positive.news (Oct 17, 2025) — London care home built to tackle social isolation wins major architecture award
• ‘Brummies united against racism’: poster campaign takes on the far right, theguardian.com (Oct 12, 2025)
• Food banks warn demand has reached crisis point, BBC News (Sep 23, 2025)
• Seven million households missing out on benefits and support, BBC News (Sep 13, 2025)
• Energy users ‘could save £5bn a year’ if gas plants are removed from market, theguardian.com (Sep 04, 2025)
• Overhaul needed to prevent benefit claimants suffering harm, MPs say, BBC News (May 15, 2025)
• Britain is already becoming an ‘island of strangers’ – but immigration isn’t the driver, theconversation.com (May 14, 2025)
• The UK’s social security system falls way below international human rights standards: new report, theconversation.com (Apr 25, 2025)
• Social supermarket is 'a hand up, not a handout', BBC News (Mar 21, 2025)
• 'A library is more than a place with books, it is a lifeline', BBC News (Mar 18, 2025)
• Wilderness to Wonderland community garden project volunteers tidying up neglected public spaces in Margate, BBC News (Mar 15, 2025)
• Work starts on energy efficient affordable housing, BBC News (Mar 01, 2025)
• The UK’s food system is broken. A green new deal for agriculture could be revolutionary, theconversation.com (Feb 28, 2025)
• ‘Lush bread – for all.’ Placing affordable loaves where they’re most needed, positive.news (Feb 21, 2025)
• The bakery that offers pay-as-you-can-afford bread, positive.news (Feb 18, 2025)
• Warm spaces event giving out advice and goods, BBC News (Jan 22, 2025)

• Thanet mulls £39m plans to house homeless, BBC News (Dec 16, 2024)
• A new way of tackling homelessness is showing promise. Will it catch on?, positive.news (Dec 09, 2024)
• All hail the greengrocer buses tackling the UK’s food deserts, wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk (Oct 09, 2024)
• Flour to the people: the Scottish collective working to democratise better bread, positive.news (Sep 23, 2024)
• ‘Ultra-cheap energy for every household’: could a different kind of tariff change everything?, theguardian.com (Aug 02, 2024)
• Pensioner body calls on Reeves to reverse cut to winter fuel allowance, theguardian.com (Aug 02, 2024)
• ‘We’re totally pay as you can’: the UK restaurant prioritising people and planet, theguardian.com (Mar 06, 2024)
• A single person on universal credit now receives 20% less than what it costs just to eat and keep warm, theconversation.com (Jan 29, 2024)

• How a programme giving millions to residents to improve their neighbourhoods also risks entrenching inequality, theconversation.com (Dec 19, 2023)
• ‘Getting a bike was a resurrection’: the project donating bicycles to refugees, positive.news (Dec 18, 2023)
• Insulating Britain: while politicians dither, this social enterprise gets the job done, positive.news (Aug 01, 2023)
• Three places offering free holidays for people who really need it, positive.news (Jul 21, 2023)
• How did the social care system end up in crisis and how can it be fixed? Expert Q&A, The Conversation (Jul 05, 2023)
• The African choirs tackling loneliness in England’s care homes, positive.news (Apr 26, 2023)
• London to offer free school meals to all primary pupils for a year, The Guardian (Feb 19, 2023)
• Richest 1% grab nearly twice as much new wealth as rest of the world put together, oxfam.org.uk (Jan 16, 2023) — The richest 1% of Britons hold more wealth than 70 per cent of Britons. The richest 1% have pocketed $26 trillion (£21 trillion) in new wealth since 2020, nearly twice as much as the other 99 per cent of the world’s population, an Oxfam report reveals today.

• No one is safe until everyone is safe – we applied it to the pandemic, but why not our economy? Rowan Williams, The Guardian (Dec 31, 2022)
• How Watford got all its homeless people off the streets, BBC News (Dec 23, 2022)
• "We just flippin' do it": how a rural cooperative from Lancashire built the fastest broadband in Britain, The Daily Alternative (Sep 21, 2022)
• How refugees leading city walking tours helps increase their sense of belonging – new research, The Conversation (Jun 16, 2022)
• How filling the UK’s unused land with fruit and veg could help make us and our environment healthier - and help fight inequality, The Conversation (May 17, 2022)
• Broad civil society coalition asks government to cut fossil fuels to also help with cost of living, greenpeace.org.uk (Mar 15, 2022) — 39 organisations spanning environmental campaigns, social justice and fuel poverty have written to the government calling for greater support for vulnerable households and for decarbonisation to help bolster the UKs energy security. The open letter, signed by groups ranging from Mums for Lungs, Environmental Justice Foundation, to Save the Children UK, calls on the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Business Secretary to ensure the upcoming energy independence plan tackles the climate emergency, gets the UK off gas, addresses air pollution, lowers bills and protects vulnerable households. “This is a fossil fuel crisis, and new fossil fuels from the likes of fracking or new North Sea oil and gas aren’t going to solve our problems." Rebecca Newsom, Greenpeace UK
• Give 1.9 million more people access to publically funded care and create almost a million new jobs through a new universal care service, New Economics Foundation (Feb 18, 2022) — Planned government investment to transform social care amounts to just 6% of what is needed, despite 1.8 million with unmet care needs.

• Community, community, community: WHO IS IT FOR? Apr 29, 2021...^[1]
• What British politicians won't admit – we need to transform the welfare state, John Harris, Feb 21, 2021...^[2]
• Welfare changes drive rising poverty and food bank use, study finds, Nov 5, 2019...^[3]
• The New Art of Making Friends and Finding Community, Feb 25, 2019...^[4]

Need to sign on? You'll have to walk 24 miles to the jobcentre, Jan 7, 2019...^[5]

• Resolve to make 2019 a year of action, Jan 2, 2019...^[6]

References

• The government needs to do more to keep homes warm by @BroadPeter, Dec 6, 2018...^[1]
• The Common Room — designing a future for all ages, Oct 2, 2018...^[2]
• A friendly approach to tackling the loneliness crisis, Sep 14, 2018...^[3]
• Vinay Gupta: We can create a better society by making a floor that people can't fall beneath, Jun 11, 2018...^[4]
• 11 Million People In The UK Are Not "Just About Managing" At All, New Research Shows, Nov 16, 2017...^[5]

UK's first report on Universal Basic Services published, Oct 11^[6]

• Utopian thinking: Free housing should be a universal right, Poppy Noor, Apr 10^[7]
• I was vulnerable and wanted a home. What I got was a workhouse, Daniel Lavelle, Mar 28^[8]

References

• My faith in humanity has been renewed, George Monbiot, Dec 12, 2016...^[1]
• Study finds 7m Britons in poverty despite being from working families, Dec 7, 2016...^[2]
• Fat Macy's: How one man escaped the Catch-22 of the benefits system, Dec 1, 2016...^[3]

Benefits sanctions don't work and plunge claimants into 'hunger and depression', National Audit Office finds, Nov 30, 2016...^[4]

• UK should follow Finland, the only European country where homelessness has decreased, Sep 15, 2016...^[5]
• Impact of poverty costs the UK £78bn a year, Aug 1, 2016...^[6]
• Number of UK children living in poverty jumps by 200,000 in a year, Jun 28, 2016...^[7]
• Why we need to build social capital in cities, Julia Unwin at the Human Cities Institute, Apr 13, 2016...^[8]
• The cause of the Runnymede eco-villagers is a righteous one, September 22, 2015...^[9]

References