Pride in Place

Pride In Place Programme

Coleraine Future Town Fund

In 2026, the UK Government launched the Pride in Place programme as part of its commitment to revitalising towns across the UK, strengthening local pride, and ensuring communities have a greater say in shaping their future. Previously part of the Plan for Neighbourhoods scheme, Coleraine is one of 75 towns selected to benefit from this national initiative, and one of only two towns located in Northern Ireland, with funding delivered locally through the Coleraine Future Town Fund (CFTF) Neighbourhood Board.

The Pride in Place programme provides a new framework for investing in towns, supporting projects that improve quality of life, strengthen local economies, and enhance the places where people live, work and spend time. It places local communities at the centre of decision‑making, ensuring funding is directed toward priorities identified by residents and stakeholders.

Coleraine Future Town Fund Neighbourhood Board

Coleraine has been allocated approximately £20 million through the Pride in Place programme to be invested over the next ten years. Funding will support projects aligned with three UK Government objectives:

• Thriving Places
• Stronger Communities
• Taking Back Control

Causeway Coast & Glens Borough Council is the Accountable Body for managing the funding and has established a CFTF Neighbourhood Board in line with Government guidance. The Board is responsible for preparing a 10‑year Vision and Regeneration Plan with an initial 4‑year investment plan, supported by an extensive programme of community engagement and public consultation. Both plans were successfully submitted to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government in December 2025.

The CFTF Board is independently chaired by Professor Gerry McKenna. In line with Government requirements, it includes balanced representation from:

• The local Member of Parliament
• Elected members of the Council
• Police Service representatives
• Community and voluntary sector organisations
• Local businesses and social enterprises
• Cultural, arts, heritage and sports organisations
• Public agencies and anchor institutions, including education providers

Board Members | Causeway Coast & Glens Borough Council

CFTF Sub Groups

Four operational sub‑groups have been created to support the Board and help shape projects reflective of local priorities:

• Safety & Security
• High Street, Heritage & Regeneration
• Transport & Connectivity
• Community Engagement & Cohesion

Funding under Pride in Place can be invested across a range of pre-approved categories, including:

• Regeneration, high streets and heritage
• Housing
• Work, productivity and skills
• Community cohesion
• Health and wellbeing
• Transport
• Safety and security
• Education and opportunity

Each category has a number of pre approved investment interventions which funding can be allocated.

Pride in Place - GOV.UK

The Pride in Place programme places communities at the heart of the regeneration process, with the aim of investing in projects that reflect local needs, whilst building trust and social capital through meaningful, ongoing engagement with residents.

The Coleraine Future Town Fund Board developed and delivered a comprehensive community engagement programme to ensure local people had a key role in shaping the Coleraine 10‑year Vision and 4‑year investment plan. This process commenced in June 2025 and ran until November 2025, and provided a range of opportunities for individuals, groups, businesses and organisations to share their views on the future of Coleraine and how the funding should be used.

List of CFTF Events

The CFTF Board has co-designed and adopted a structured and transparent approach to stakeholder engagement and community consultation to ensure that the Regeneration Plan reflects local priorities and delivers maximum impact. This process was, and continues to be designed, to maintain inclusivity, accountability, and strategic alignment throughout the 10-year programme.

The engagement was driven by guidance of the DfC Ministerial Advisory Group for Architecture and the Built Environment (MAG) Living High Street Approach⁷ which is a community-led approach to placemaking aiming to support successful neighbourhoods, villages, towns and cities. This participatory approach brings people together to consider their local high streets, tackle common issues and enable places and communities to thrive.

The Board developed an engagement process that was meaningful and purposeful and carried out with a wide range of stakeholders across Coleraine in order to ensure that trust and social capital could be built, and that the voices of local people remained central to determining how the funding would be invested. Our engagement process was and continues to be built on the concept of a “social Licence” which requires developing a plan that has community buy in and wide and purposeful engagement with all stakeholders.

Our engagement process has been driven by the following steps which recognises the importance of asking people what they think and giving them feedback about what you have done with that input.

The CFTF Board designed the engagement so that local people have had an opportunity to contribute to have been listened to using the following process:

We Asked; You Said; We heard – leading to the identification of Positive Insights, Challenges and an Ideas Scrapbook.

Following sifting by the board and subgroups, key actions and projects will be listed under the following headings – “We Can, We Can’t and why, and We Can signpost to someone who can”.