A tour of local ‘wins’ shows how the charity Citizens UK is working with residents to build a better, fairer society

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• Communities are our defence against hatred. Now, more than ever, we must invest in hope

Dashing through the snow with Father Chris … It does not get any more seasonal, even if it feels like there might be a final syllable missing. To be honest we are not really dashing, it’s more a leisurely walk-and-talk, around North Shields. And the snow, the remnants of an early Tyneside flurry, is patchy and dirty rather than deep and crisp and even.

Father Chris is real though – Father Chris Hughes, Catholic priest; the diocese is a strategic partner for the local chapter of Citizens UK, one of five charities supported by this year’s Guardian charity appeal, under the theme of “hope”. The appeal supports grassroots voluntary groups that nurture community pride and positive change, providing an antidote to division and hate.

Five men who targeted vulnerable girls in park sentenced to terms of between 18 months and 14 years

Five men who were part of a “horrific” grooming gang that raped and sexually assaulted schoolgirls in a park have been jailed for between 18 months and 14 years.

The men targeted vulnerable girls in Saltwell Park, Gateshead, plying their victims with alcohol and cocaine.

It’s a scandal laid bare. A stark new report highlights the price paid in Britain’s former industrial heartlands for this silent piece of ministerial vandalism

The Welsh valleys have some of the highest numbers of people claiming incapacity benefits in the whole of Britain. In Abertillery, Maesteg and Merthyr Tydfil, getting on for a quarter of the working-age population is not employed – in large part due to long-term ill-health. If the government was serious about reducing the growing welfare bill, it would be starting here and in the other parts of the country blighted by deindustrialisation and poverty. It would identify the parts of the country most in need – Wales, Scotland and large swaths of northern England – and love-bomb them.

Yet instead of devoting more money to regional economic development, ministers are doing the opposite. In one of its less-publicised policy moves, Labour has quietly gutted the fund designed to create jobs, a scheme inherited from the Conservatives. The silent demolition job on regional policy is laid bare in a new report by Steve Fothergill, national director of the Industrial Communities Alliance, an umbrella group for the local authorities worst affected by the hollowing out of Britain’s industrial base and the closure of the coalfields.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist