This document summarizes research on the high street and efforts to impact public policy. It discusses 3 case studies: 1) how knowledge about skills for sustainable communities was ignored by governments, 2) how the "big society" narrative undermined community development knowledge, and 3) how research on food banks and welfare reform is consistently ignored. It reflects on challenges of impact including losing control of the research narrative, policy preferences determining research agendas, differing definitions of impact between researchers and policymakers, and impact being more about self-presentation than influence. It proposes an agenda for impact that sees impact as provisional, challenges canonical knowledge, is inclusive of participant views, and disturbs rather than just reinforces the status quo.