Reasons to Get Together
An intergenerational offer to Hope on the High Street from Intergenerational England
In brief
Hope on the High Street recognises the importance of high streets for connection, belonging and health, giving a whole pillar to “reasons to get together” (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government [MHCLG], 2026, p. 13). Intergenerational England welcomes that ambition and proposes working with government and local partners to test how it can be delivered in two or three places already receiving regeneration funding.
The need is clear in government’s own data: only half of 25 to 34 year olds (50%) feel they belong to their neighbourhood, compared with 74% of people aged 75 and over (Department for Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS], 2026). A high street may serve people of every age without giving them opportunities to know one another. Intergenerational practice creates those opportunities through shared activity and relationships that develop over time.
Our proposal focuses on five priorities: measuring connection by age, assigning responsibility for it, funding the activity within community buildings, designing accessible shared spaces and involving generations together in local decisions. These build on existing commitments, although sustained delivery will require resources for the people and organisations hosting it.
The practical offers below draw on more than 2,500 projects delivered by Intergenerational Music Making since 2018 (Intergenerational Music Making [IMM], 2026), national polling with YouGov and research with Sheffield Hallam University’s Centre for Loneliness Studies. Through the Age of Solidarity, our ten-year programme, we aim to use that experience to embed connection between generations in the places and systems that shape everyday life.
1 The strategy’s foundations for connection
The strategy describes markets, cafés, libraries, pubs and cultural venues as “third spaces” for social connection, civic participation and shared experiences, and high streets as “common ground where people from different backgrounds can meet” (MHCLG, 2026, para. 12). It recognises cohesion, health and wellbeing alongside economic growth as reasons for regeneration (MHCLG, 2026, para. 15).
Its evidence suggests that connection already influences how people use these places: around 31% now visit high streets mainly for social reasons (MHCLG, 2026, para. 97). The ambition that “healthy high streets support healthy lives” therefore reflects an existing role that regeneration can strengthen (MHCLG, 2026, para. 85).
There are foundations for an intergenerational approach too. Pillar 3 calls for activity “for different ages and interests” (MHCLG, 2026, p. 13), while the strategy seeks places that help people remain “independent, connected and active as they age” (MHCLG, 2026, para. 119). Its Tyldesley case study explicitly celebrates a cultural programme designed to “encourage collaboration of all generations” (MHCLG, 2026, p. 56).
The Secretary of State’s foreword gives this a personal meaning through her memories of Saturday mornings at the market with her mam and nana, where she “learned what it meant to belong somewhere” (MHCLG, 2026, p. 7). That account of three generations sharing a place and a weekly routine captures the kind of everyday experience the strategy could help more people enjoy.
2 Making connection part of delivery
Restoring buildings and supporting businesses can create better conditions for people to meet, but lasting relationships also depend on regular activity, skilled hosting and local involvement. To make these part of delivery, the strategy needs clear responsibility for social connection, measures of progress and an understanding of how experiences differ by age.
The Office for the Impact Economy’s planned business-led partnership on social connection offers a useful starting point (MHCLG, 2026, para. 42). Businesses bring local knowledge and reach, but the work also involves culture, health, housing and youth services. A clear departmental lead, working across those responsibilities and with a route to funding, would help ensure that connection remains a delivery priority as budgets and programmes develop.
MHCLG’s commitment to tracking persistent vacancy and public perceptions provides a basis for measuring progress (MHCLG, 2026, para. 178). Including belonging, loneliness and contact across generations would help establish whether investment is improving people’s experience of their high street as well as its economic health, and give local partners evidence to guide future spending.
Reporting those measures by age would reveal differences that an overall figure could conceal. The strategy already observes that small town centres have more older residents, while larger centres attract younger people (MHCLG, 2026, para. 163). Understanding who uses each place, and who has opportunities to connect there, would help local partners design activity around the communities they serve.
The DCMS survey shows a 24 percentage point gap in neighbourhood belonging between 25 to 34 year olds and people aged 75 and over. It also records substantial variation between places, from 74% in Derbyshire Dales to 47% in Norwich (DCMS, 2026). These findings support looking at age and place together when deciding where to invest and how to involve residents.
Research we co-authored with Professor Andrea Wigfield and Dr Stephen Green at Sheffield Hallam University’s Centre for Loneliness Studies helps explain the barriers. It identifies life transitions, including starting work, becoming a carer and retiring, as periods of heightened risk of loneliness, and describes how generations increasingly occupy different physical, digital and cultural worlds (Wigfield et al., 2026, p. 21). Schools, workplaces, housing and leisure spaces often organise people by age, making separation part of everyday life. As we argue in the article, “the challenge is rarely willingness; rather, the absence of conditions that enable connection” (Wigfield et al., 2026, p. 22).
Our national polling with YouGov suggests considerable public support for addressing this separation: 86% of UK adults agree that mixing across generations can build mutual respect, 81% that it can reduce feelings of loneliness and 76% that it can improve mental health. Yet only 17% report regular contact with other generations in community spaces (Intergenerational England and YouGov, 2024). High streets offer a practical setting in which to turn that support into regular opportunities to take part.
3 What delivery experience shows
In Tyldesley, Wigan, a community interest company used the cultural strand of its High Street Heritage Action Zone to bring generations together through a festival, a community radio station and a mural by local school children (MHCLG, 2026, p. 56). The radio station and festival are set to continue beyond the programme, suggesting that the investment supported activity people wanted to sustain. The example shows how local organisations can give residents a shared reason to use their high street and contribute to its life.
Intergenerational Music Making (IMM), our delivery partner, has been developing this practice since 2018, running more than 2,500 projects with over 138,000 participants and training more than 900 practitioners (IMM, 2026). Its work spans schools, care homes, hospitals, housing schemes and community venues, with outcomes tracked using recognised measures including WEMWBS and the UCLA Loneliness Scale.
Through Access All Ages, Creative Health Hubs and Creative Skills Pathways, music and creativity give participants a shared activity around which friendships, confidence and opportunities to contribute can develop. The programmes also provide routes into volunteering, skills and work, connecting participation with other parts of people’s lives.
The Sheffield Hallam research identifies social infrastructure, public space design and feeling safe as conditions that enable connection (Wigfield et al., 2026, p. 21). These are all within the strategy’s scope, from investment in libraries and community venues to seating, safe crossings and public space. Local organisations need support to make use of those improvements through activity that people can join regularly.
For delivery, this means planning the use of a building alongside its restoration, including the staff, regular programmes and local ownership needed to sustain it. People of different ages should have opportunities to lead, learn and contribute according to their interests and experience. Locating that activity in everyday settings such as libraries, markets, health centres and cafés can make it easier for residents to become involved and keep returning. Decisions about these arrangements belong in the design and funding of a programme from the outset.
4 Practical offers against the strategy’s commitments
The strategy’s policy annex contains more than 80 commitments, including proposals to explore options, develop guidance, refresh arrangements and consult (MHCLG, 2026, pp. 80–85). The table identifies 14 opportunities to incorporate intergenerational practice as this work develops, grouped under the relevant pillars. Changes to guidance can involve limited additional cost, while proposals for regular activity and skilled hosting require an agreed funding route. Paragraph numbers refer to MHCLG (2026).
Pillar | Strategy commitment (para, lead) | Our intergenerational offer |
1. Leadership | Explore a business-led partnership to strengthen social connection on high streets (para 42; Office for the Impact Economy) | Include civil society and research partners from the outset. Co-design a Connected High Street pledge through which businesses host shared activity across ages, offer mentoring and report simple connection measures. IE offers its evidence, polling data and outcomes framework in development. |
1. Leadership | Pride in Place neighbourhood boards in 284 places with low social infrastructure (para 44; MHCLG) | Guidance encouraging boards to include young and older residents and to involve them together, not in separate consultations. IE can pilot an intergenerational participation method with boards, supported by trained Intergenerational Activators. |
1. Leadership | Civil Society Covenant: 15 Local Covenant Partnerships, £11.59m (para 47; DCMS) | Make connection across generations a shared outcome in the partnerships. IE offers to support one or two as learning sites. |
1. Leadership | Improve the evidence base, data and survey questions on high streets (para 178; MHCLG) | Report belonging and loneliness by age at high street catchment level, and add a question on contact across generations. IE offers its YouGov dataset and the Outcomes Framework it is developing to support this work. |
2. Anchors | £210m Community Assets Package: Derelict Buildings Fund and community ownership fund (paras 45, 79, 133; MHCLG) | Ask bidders to show how a restored space will be programmed and hosted for all ages, and how that will be resourced for at least three years. Offer an all-age anchor model in which an intergenerational hub is a founding tenant. |
2. Anchors | Neighbourhood Health Centres and Best Start Family Hubs in town centres (para 88; DHSC, DfE) | Design shared spaces where families with young children and older residents meet. Build creative health and social prescribing routes onto the high street, drawing on IMM's clinical and hospital practice. |
2. Anchors | Libraries Improvement Fund and service co-location (para 94; DCMS) | Position libraries as intergenerational anchors, with shared programmes in reading, music and digital skills. IMM offers to pilot an all-age programme in a co-located library. |
2. Anchors | Review barriers to flexible use of markets and street trading (para 92; MHCLG) | Intergenerational markets, where young traders start alongside experienced stallholders, and market days that include shared activity across ages. |
2. Anchors | £450m youth facilities; retail and hospitality work experience for young people not in education, employment or training (paras 40, 95; DCMS, DWP) | Explore agreed shared use of youth facilities with residents of other ages, alongside dedicated youth provision. Pair placements with experienced mentors, building on IMM’s Creative Skills Pathways. |
2. Anchors | High Streets First, Local Asset Management Plans and Place Based Business Cases guidance (paras 81 to 83; cross-government, OPMC, HMT) | Count the social value of intergenerational use when public bodies appraise town centre sites, drawing on IE's work on the social value of intergenerational approaches in housing. |
3. Culture | Arts Everywhere, Creative Places Growth Fund and UK Town of Culture 2028 (paras 36, 105, 106; DCMS) | An intergenerational strand in place-based cultural programmes, building on the Tyldesley model the strategy already cites. |
5. Welcoming | Refresh guidance and template leases for meanwhile use (para 138; MHCLG) | A model for intergenerational meanwhile spaces, with a template lease clause for community use, run with local organisations. |
5. Welcoming | Model Design Codes for mixed-use town centres and shopfronts (paras 32, 140; MHCLG) | Intergenerational design principles: seating, toilets, shade and step-free routes, places to linger without spending, and space for play and rest side by side. IE offers to contribute to the codes. |
6. Home | More homes on and around high streets, with a mix of types and tenures (paras 161 to 164; MHCLG) | Plan town centre housing for a mix of ages, connected to shared space below, so new residents of different generations meet as neighbours. IE offers practice from its intergenerational housing partnerships. |
We would welcome discussions with the relevant teams about which offers would be most useful, including opportunities to test them in places already receiving Pride in Place or Community Assets funding.
5 Five priorities for initial action
The following priorities provide a starting point within existing programmes and responsibilities. Together, they would make social connection a clearer part of how high street investment is planned, delivered and assessed.
Measure connection by age.
Add belonging, loneliness and contact across generations to the indicators MHCLG will track, with results reported by age group, so local partners can identify gaps and assess change (MHCLG, 2026, para. 178).
Give social connection a clear lead.
Agree responsibility between MHCLG and DCMS, and involve civil society and research partners in the Impact Economy partnership from the outset (MHCLG, 2026, para. 42).
Fund the ongoing use of community buildings.
Community Assets Package guidance should ask how restored spaces will be hosted and programmed for all ages, with resources identified beyond the capital phase to protect the long-term value of the investment.
Design town centres for every age.
Include intergenerational principles in Model Design Codes and in briefs for Neighbourhood Health Centres, Family Hubs and co-located libraries, covering accessibility and opportunities for shared activity.
Involve generations in decisions together.
Encourage Pride in Place boards to bring residents of different ages into shared discussions, so they can understand one another’s priorities and help shape their neighbourhood.
Intergenerational England proposes working with MHCLG, DCMS and local partners to test these priorities in two or three places already receiving Pride in Place or Community Assets funding. We would agree the scope, responsibilities and resources with partners, measure what changes and share the learning openly.
6 Delivery through the Age of Solidarity
The Age of Solidarity is Intergenerational England’s national programme for 2026 to 2036, designed to build connection between generations into Britain’s social infrastructure (Intergenerational England, 2026). It provides a framework for bringing the proposed local work together with organisational development and longer-term research.
Its three strands address the strategy’s delivery needs:
Strand | What it delivers | Strategy need it meets |
Evidence | An Intergenerational Maturity Model and Outcomes Framework, built on established wellbeing and social value measures | A way to measure connection and belonging (MHCLG, 2026, para. 178) |
Place-based delivery | Access All Ages hubs and trained Intergenerational Activators, building on IMM's practice | People and programmes in the buildings the Community Assets Package restores |
Systems change | Intergenerational practice built into standards, commissioning and social value across housing, health, employment and local government | An owner and a route for social connection across departments |
Learning from local delivery would inform the practice of organisations running places and the standards, commissioning and investment decisions that shape their work. We are developing the programme with partners across housing, health and civil society, including UK Community Foundations and housing developers planning intergenerational schemes.
The ten-year timeframe also creates an opportunity to address the shortage of longitudinal evidence identified by our academic partners, by following how relationships and outcomes develop beyond individual projects.
7 A question for Parliament
High streets are part of a wider network of housing, transport, public spaces and services that determines where people can go and whom they are likely to meet. Delivering the strategy’s social ambitions therefore raises a wider question about how responsibility for connection is shared across government.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Tackling Loneliness and Connected Communities, for which Intergenerational England provides the secretariat, is gathering evidence on loneliness across the life course from housing, health and social care, employment, education, culture and community organisations, alongside people with lived experience. It will report in 2027. The inquiry’s conclusions are for the group’s members, but its cross-sector evidence offers an opportunity to examine how the places and systems shaping everyday life can create more chances to build relationships.
8 The real test
Hope on the High Street gives government and local partners an opportunity to make belonging a visible outcome of regeneration. Alongside restored buildings, supported businesses and increased footfall, success should mean that residents of every generation have more opportunities to know one another and contribute to the places they share.
Through the Age of Solidarity, IE and IMM are ready to work with partners to put these proposals into practice, building on existing investment and supporting the people who sustain community life.
A high street can bring generations into the same space. The real test is whether it gives them reasons to get together, and helps them build relationships that last.
About Intergenerational England
Intergenerational England works across research, policy and partnerships to strengthen connection and solidarity between generations, and provides the secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Tackling Loneliness and Connected Communities. Its delivery partner, Intergenerational Music Making, has run intergenerational creative health programmes since 2018. Together they lead the Age of Solidarity.
Contact: Emily Abbott, Charlotte Miller and Spike Stevens at info@intergenerationalengland.org
References
Department for Culture, Media and Sport (2026) Community and Engagement Survey 2025/26: neighbourhood and community. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/community-and-engagement-survey-202526-neighbourhood/community-and-engagement-survey-202526-neighbourhood-and-community-report (Accessed: 29 October 2026).
Intergenerational England (2026) The Age of Solidarity: a ten-year national programme, 2026–2036. Manchester: Intergenerational England https://www.intergenerationalengland.org/ageofsolidarity
Intergenerational England and YouGov (2024) National polling on intergenerational relationships and social connection https://www.intergenerationalengland.org/ie-research
Intergenerational Music Making (2026) Programme monitoring data, 2018–2026 Woking: Intergenerational Music Making https://ddf72121-7cb9-49db-b06f-cf2274eac3fe.filesusr.com/ugd/e30f20_301efc9de46c40a9a57921d5af9252ae.pdf
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (2026) Hope on the High Street (CP 1704). London: MHCLG. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hope-on-the-high-street (Accessed: 29 October 2026).
Wigfield, A., Green, S., Abbott, E. and Miller, C. (2026) ‘Nurturing meaningful intergenerational relationships’, Journal for Community Studies. Institute for Community Studies, The Young Foundation, 22 September. Available at: https://www.youngfoundation.org/journal-for-community-studies/nurturing-meaningful-intergenerational-relationships/(Accessed: 2 November 2026)
