City leaders need to channel spirit of Chamberlain

By Ben Lucas

This is a moment of great risk and opportunity for British cities.  Post EU referendum, post Cameron and Osborne, the stakes have never been higher.  Cities have patiently and persuasively made the case for rebalancing growth and power, and for devolution to combined authorities with Metro Mayors.  They now face some big challenges, as we set out in Adieu: the impact of Brexit on British Cities - on EU funding, trade, investment, universities and the progress of their devolution deals.

The Search for Inclusive Growth

By Mike Emmerich 

 

To the ambition of growth, long the goal of local policy makers, have been added a variety of qualifying adjectives over the years. Sustainable growth, having once been a fad has now entered the lexicon as an established term of art referring to a growth imperative that is environmentally responsible yet also in some sense socially responsible, building communities that people want to live in. Today, our concern is with socially inclusive growth.

A call for greater fiscal autonomy for our cities

Core Cities today released its report 'A call for greater fiscal autonomy for our cities', authored by Metro Dynamics.  Read the new report here and Core Cities' response here.

Cities need a wide range of fiscal freedoms to deliver economic growth. Business rate localisation is a welcome step, but is not without risk, and should be introduced as part of a programme of wider fiscal reform -  new report from Core Cities UK and Metro Dynamics.

Has our infrastructure become too expensive?

By Sarah Whitney

It has been widely reported that Sir Jeremy Heywood is running his slide rule over HS2 reflecting concerns within Government that the budget for the project could be exceeded.  The cost of HS2 has gradually risen over time, from £32.6 billion in January 2012 to £55 billion in November 2015, up from the previous estimate of £50 billion set two years earlier.

This increase is a particular issue, because the vast majority of the cost of building HS2 will fall on the taxpayer, with perhaps a proportion of those costs recouped on completion by the letting of a contract to operate the line. Therefore, it should be no surprise that a project of this magnitude should be subject to periodic review by one of our most senior mandarins.

Why we need to steel ourselves for a new industrial policy

By Mike Emmerich

There is a view that after its post war flirtation with Morrisonian nationalisation and then Thatcherite privatisation, British industrial policy has settled into a new and desirable norm. As I write this blog, Janan Ganesh’s latest piece for the FT is staring at me. “The quiet success of Britain’s anarchic economic model” reads the headline, setting the tone for an argument to be heard often in parts of Britain that we have moved beyond the rigidity of our more doctrinaire past, and in doing so past our old rivals in France, and maybe even in Germany too, in creating a model that has fixed the generations-old British disease.

Budget 2016: What it means for cities

By Simge Kartav

Yesterday the Chancellor George Osborne delivered his third budget in 12 months.  In his 62-minute speech, changes to tax rates and savings took centre stage. However, his announcements on devolution, transport and business rates are those that will inevitably have a big impact on cities in the UK. 

The Chancellor emphasised that the ‘devolution revolution’ will carry on full speed and announced new deals with the West of England, East Anglia, and Greater Lincolnshire. The Chancellor will be building on existing devolution deals with Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Sheffield City Region, the North East and Tees Valley; soon 57% of the population of the North of England will be represented by elected mayors. Previously agreed mayoral devolution deals will also each receive unringfenced single pots of funding to spend on local priorities, worth £2.86 billion in total.