economic development

A compelling vision

This article originally appeared in the Municipal Journal, where our Chief Executive, Sarah Longlands, writes a regular viewpoint column.

Conversations with local economic development officers this week reminded me, once again, of how difficult it is to fund the desperately needed transformation of places.

This scarcity of funding means that councils have to be pragmatic. Many are attempting to develop funding packages from the many and various national schemes and there is an ever-increasing reliance on private sector investment both from the UK and abroad. But there is a bitter irony in a government thinking that they can continue to cut funds to local government yet still expecting them to devise top notch investment propositions for private investors.
“a perpetual state of crisis”
Place-based policy in the UK continues to rely on the assumption put forward by George Osborne’s 2010 budget: that investment in public services must be dependent on their ability to generate growth. This ouroboric logic has resulted in more than a decade of grinding austerity, leaving communities, and some local councils, in a perpetual state of crisis.

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  • RESEARCH

    A light in the dark

    18th November 2022
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    • Podcast: community wealth building – present and future

    The second of two podcasts from CLES – following on from community wealth building: a history, released last month – this special episode explores the moment we are in and the prospects of community wealth building in the UK.

    With commentary from CLES’s incoming and outgoing CEOs, Sarah Longlands and Neil McInroy, the podcast takes a deeper look at the incremental changes that local governments can employ, to turn the dial to create economic, social and environmental justice for their place.

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    Podcast: community wealth building – a history

    This new podcast from CLES tells the story of the conceptual and practical origins of community wealth building, through the voices of thinkers and practitioners, from Clackmannanshire to Cleveland.

    The first of two episodes to be released in the coming months, part two will explore the moment we are now in for local economic development, how that relates to community wealth building and the on-the-ground processes that are incrementally turning the dial towards system change.

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  • POLICY PROVOCATION

    Devolve, redirect, democratise

    25th May 2021
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    • A budget for recovery…but recovery for whom?

    Years of successive budgets have been high on rhetoric and low on the content required to fundamentally change our economy. This budget is no different. The budget has continued to shore up spend, but not for local economies, local public services or the climate. In previous times, increased state spending would have benefited public sector workers and enhanced the social protection floor to insure us against poverty and destitution. Not this time.

    Within the continued pledge to do “whatever it takes” there are plenty of warm words, bolstered by policies that show concern, but the cold harshness of a fossil fuelled economy of growth, financialisation and wealth extraction remains.

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  • GUIDE

    Implementing Community Wealth Building

    1st March 2021
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    • Community Wealth Building 2020: an urgent imperative

    Quite apart from its traditional historical significance, Thursday 5th November represents a milestone for the UK in the country’s fight against Covid-19. As a second lockdown looks set to compound economic and social hardship, we are again reminded of the distressed state of our local economies and the weakened condition of the local public sector in parts of the country, following decades of austerity and underinvestment. The imperative to deliver an alternative future is now more urgent than ever.

    This Thursday, CLES will host our annual Community Wealth Building Summit and, ahead of the Summit, we are today releasing Owning the Economy: Community Wealth Building 2020.

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    Climate emergency requires local economic restructuring

    This article originally appeared in the Local Government Chronicle

    The community wealth movement has four key actions that will help councils meet the challenge of climate change – ‘greening’ existing practice is insufficient.

    Around 70% of all councils across the UK have now declared a climate emergency, with ambitious carbon reduction targets. While acknowledgment of the crisis is an important first step, the pressing need is to now make these declarations meaningful in terms of radical action and progressive practice.

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  • Newham: at the forefront of community wealth building

    16 Jan. 2020

    • Climate emergency is here. For local economies, this changes everything.

    As we head into a new decade, it is now impossible to ignore the fact that the climate emergency will be the dominant issue above all others in the 2020s.

    Whether it be Bolsonaro burning the Amazon or, closer to home, vast flooding across Yorkshire and the Peak District, events in recent months have breathed terrifying life into Greta Thunberg’s assertion that ‘we need to act as if our house is on fire, because it is.’

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    Back to the future? Thoughts on the first UK2070 Commission report

    The UK2070 Commission has released its first report: fairer and stronger: rebalancing the UK economy. The first of three reports, it represents the latest in a long line of policy efforts which have sought to tackle the deep spatial inequality which has plagued the UK as far back as the Barlow Commission of 1940. Does this report – or the Commission as a whole – offer a genuine, much-needed step change?

    The starting point for UK2070 should be an acknowledgement that we live in unprecedented times: profound social, economic and democratic crises continue to unfold with a terrifying backdrop of ongoing climate emergency. Spatial imbalances are framed by this, as such  we need a fundamental redress to the UK social contract – this is not a 1979, 1997 or 2010 moment, this is more like 1945.

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    Rebuilding the local economy in Britain’s Seaside Towns

    If ever there was an example that epitomises the misery imposed by market neo-liberalism, it’s the plight of Britain’s seaside towns.

    Decades of agglomeration has led to the incubation of ‘superstar cities’ such as Manchester, leaving places like Blackpool and Rhyl deprived and depleted. As CLES reported on in 2017,  the last vestiges of their seaside heritage are now enveloped by a coil of ever-tightening social and economic decline.

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    Whatever happened to economic development?

    Budget day for the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) used to be one of intrigue and relative excitement. In the 2000s, the Budget was supplemented by a specific annex focused on economic development and regeneration. Indeed, the Budget was where we saw exciting new renewal initiatives announced; reviews of sub-national economic development formulated; and new duties and funding initiated.

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