If you spend enough time working around government, housing, regeneration and public services, you start to notice that certain words come in and out of fashion. Partnership. Community. Levelling up. Growth. Resilience. 

And in recent years, perhaps more than any other, place.

It is a word that appears in policy papers, conference speeches, strategies and funding programmes. Organisations talk about place-based working, place-based investment and place-based partnerships. Entire teams and programmes are now built around the concept. 

Sometimes that makes me wonder whether people think place is a new idea.

It isn't. In fact, it is one of the oldest ideas in public life. 

Long before housing associations existed, reformers understood that people's lives were shaped by the places they lived. During the Victorian era, pioneers such as Octavia Hill recognised that improving housing alone was not enough. The quality of neighbourhoods, access to green space, local relationships and personal wellbeing were all connected. 

Following the Second World War, the New Towns movement took this thinking further. The ambition was not simply to build houses but to create complete places, combining homes, jobs, schools, transport and public services. 

The language was different, but the principle was remarkably similar to many of the conversations we are having today. 

Over the decades that followed, governments repeatedly returned to place as a way of tackling some of society's most difficult challenges. Urban regeneration programmes, neighbourhood renewal initiatives and local growth strategies all recognised that disadvantage often concentrates geographically and that solutions need to be shaped around local circumstances.

Yet despite decades of effort, much of the public sector remained organised around functions. 

Housing organisations focused on housing. Health services focused on health. Local authorities focused on local government. Education providers focused on schools. Each with their own priorities, funding streams and measures of success. The problem, of course, is that people do not live their lives through organisational structures. 

They experience life through place. 

A poor-quality home can affect physical and mental health. A lack of transport can limit employment opportunities. Social isolation can increase demand on public services. Educational outcomes can be influenced by housing insecurity.

Everything is connected.

That reality is one of the reasons why place has moved back to the centre of policy discussions over the last decade. From devolution and integrated care systems to regeneration funding and economic growth strategies, there is increasing recognition that long-term outcomes are often shaped by how effectively organisations work together within a place rather than how efficiently they operate individually. 

From my perspective working in external affairs, this shift has been particularly noticeable. 

15 years ago, much of the conversation centred on influencing individual policies, responding to consultations or building relationships with specific stakeholders. 

Those things remain important. 

But increasingly, conversations with government, Homes England, local authorities, regional leaders and partners are not simply about individual projects or policy interventions. 

They are about places. 

How can investment be aligned more effectively? How can organisations work together differently? How do we unlock growth while strengthening communities? How do we ensure that regeneration improves lives rather than simply changing skylines? 

The questions have become broader, more connected and in many ways, more interesting.

One of the most interesting developments I have seen in recent years is the growing recognition that scale and place are not opposing forces. 

Historically, there has often been a tension between the two. Large organisations could bring investment, expertise and financial strength, but risked becoming disconnected from local needs. Smaller organisations often had deep local knowledge but lacked the resources to drive change at scale. 

Increasingly, the challenge is not choosing between scale and place. It is finding ways to combine them. 

That is one of the opportunities I see through BFL.

The merger was, in part, about creating greater capacity. Greater financial resilience. Greater ability to invest. Greater ability to deliver the homes the country desperately needs. 

But what interests me most is what that scale makes possible beyond housing delivery. 

By bringing together organisations, we have unlocked the ability to think differently about place. Not simply as a collection of individual developments, but as long-term environments where people live their lives. 

We can invest not only in new homes, but in existing places. We can support regeneration that strengthens places as well as increasing housing supply. We can bring together investment, partnerships and local insight in ways that would have been more difficult before. 

Importantly, scale gives us the ability to think beyond annual funding cycles and individual projects. 

It allows us to take a longer-term view. 

To ask not simply how many homes we can build, but what kind of places we want to help create over the next twenty or thirty years. 

For me, that is where the conversation about place becomes most exciting. Not as a theory or policy concept, but as a practical way of bringing together investment, partnerships and local knowledge to create places that enable people to thrive.

That is one of the reasons I believe housing associations have such an important role to play. 

Unlike many organisations, we are embedded in places for the long term. 

We build homes, but we also invest in places, relationships, services and opportunities. We often see the connections between housing, health, education, employment and wellbeing more clearly because we experience them every day alongside our customers. 

For me, that is what place-based working is really about. 

Not a funding programme. Not a governance model. Not a fashionable policy phrase.

Simply recognising that people's lives are shaped by the places around them and that lasting change happens when organisations work together to improve those places over the long term.

The more I work in this sector, the more convinced I become that many of the challenges we face cannot be solved by organisations acting alone. 

They require long-term partnerships, shared ambition and organisations willing to invest in places for decades, not funding cycles. 

That is why I believe place-based working will continue to shape the future of housing, regeneration and public services. 

Because ultimately, people do not experience policy, programmes or organisational structures. 

They experience place. 

And if we get place right, we enable people to thrive.

If you'd like to dig a little deeper into place, our previous webinar series exploring the journey so far is still available to view online. See our episode below covering the general thinking and strategy behind place-based working: