There is a big difference between a government announcement and actual change on the ground. In Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, the Pride in Place funding programme worth between £20 million and £40 million is starting to close that gap, and local people are beginning to see the results firsthand.
The funding, which targets some of the most economically challenged areas of Wales, has been channelled into both communities with the aim of reversing years of underinvestment. For Blaenau Gwent MP Nick Smith, watching the money move from a press release into real bricks and mortar projects is what makes the work worthwhile.
Blaenau Gwent has long faced some of the steepest economic challenges in Wales. Former industrial heartland, high unemployment rates, and town centres that have struggled to keep pace with changing times. The Pride in Place pot was designed with exactly these kinds of communities in mind, targeting areas where public investment can have the biggest ripple effect.
Projects funded through the scheme cover a range of priorities. Town centre regeneration has been a key focus, with efforts to bring empty and derelict buildings back into use. Improving public spaces, supporting local facilities, and creating environments where businesses actually want to set up shop are all part of the broader push to make these places feel cared for again.
Rhymney, sitting in the Caerphilly county borough but closely tied to the wider valleys economy, has seen similar activity. The community there has watched investment flow in and begin to reshape what the town centre looks and feels like. For residents who have seen plenty of promises come and go over the decades, visible progress matters enormously.
Nick Smith has been vocal about the importance of this kind of place-based investment, arguing that targeted funding which stays rooted in a specific geography tends to deliver more lasting results than broader national schemes that can spread money too thinly. The Pride in Place approach is built around that logic, concentrating resources to create genuine momentum rather than modest improvements spread across too wide an area.
The Welsh Government has framed Pride in Place as part of a wider commitment to tackling regional inequality within Wales itself. While much of the conversation around levelling up has focused on the divide between Wales and wealthier parts of England, there is an equally important conversation to be had about the gaps within Wales, between Cardiff and the valleys, between coastal towns and post-industrial communities further inland.
Businesses in both areas have reportedly responded positively to the investment signals. When public money goes into improving a town centre or refurbishing a key building, it tends to give private investors more confidence that a place is worth backing. That knock-on effect is one of the main reasons place-based regeneration funding is considered worthwhile by economists who study regional development.
For ordinary residents, the changes are perhaps most noticeable in the smaller details. Cleaner public spaces, renovated buildings that had sat empty for years, and a general sense that someone is paying attention. In communities that have sometimes felt forgotten by decision-makers in Cardiff Bay or Westminster, that feeling carries real weight.
The programme is still in relatively early stages, and the full impact will take time to measure properly. Regeneration is rarely a quick fix, and the challenges facing places like Blaenau Gwent run deep. Decades of deindustrialisation do not get reversed in a single funding cycle. But the early signs from both communities suggest the money is being put to practical use rather than disappearing into consultancy reports and planning documents that never lead anywhere.
Nick Smith has pointed to the Pride in Place work as an example of what focused, community-level investment can achieve when it is properly managed and directed at real priorities rather than headline-grabbing vanity projects. The test, as always, will be whether the momentum continues and whether future funding rounds build on what has already started rather than starting from scratch.
For Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, the hope is that this is the beginning of something sustained rather than another chapter in a long history of short-term interventions that promised much and delivered little. The money is in. The work has started. Now comes the harder part of making it last.