News & Views
By Ben Lucas
At the Core Cities Summit last week, city leaders were understandably frustrated by the suggestion that inclusive growth is on the agenda because of the EU referendum.They didn’t need Brexit to tell them that the economy is not delivering for their residents. But, as chief market strategist for Britain and Europe at JP Morgan Asset Management, Stephanie Flanders, said to those leaders, Brexit has created a unique opportunity to change our economic model
Prime minister Theresa May has said her number one priority is to develop an ‘economy that works for everyone’. In her speech on becoming prime minister she asked to be judged on the extent to which she succeeds in this.
Metro Dynamics are acting as strategic advisor and secretariat to the West Midlands Land Commission (WMLC). The role of the West Midlands Land Commission is to take a fresh look at matters affecting the West Midlands' land supply.
The commission will provide independent advice and recommendations to the authority as it seeks to secure an improved and balanced supply of land to meet its goals for economic growth, new jobs and housing.
There aren’t a lot of jokes about regulators. Here’s one. A regulator marches into a compliance manager’s office and slams down a stack of 3,331 complaints. He yells that the (banking/pharma/telecoms) company has until next Friday to respond. “And if we don’t?” “You’ll have 3,332 complaints” the regulator responds sheepishly and slinks out.
Last week, yet another UK regulator followed the script of that joke. Following an extensive investigation, Ofcom, the communications regulator, has decided to leave BT’s quasi monopoly over the UK’s broadband infrastructure essentially unchanged. This is not just bad news for the country. It is really bad news for UK cities.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This month's Prospect magazine features an extensive article written by our Founding Director Sarah Whitney.
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.
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.
By Mike Emmerich & Irene Guillet
When there’s a beer named after a Government initiative, something unusual is happening. Thus it is with the Northern Powerhouse. What’s more, the beer in question, a first joint concoction of the Bradford and Leeds Breweries, is a deliberate homage to the spirit of intercity cooperation. And yet to a lot of people the Powerhouse is a failure (because the North-South gap remains) or a con (the work of a Chancellor bent on devolving cuts to gullible local politicians). A little over eighteen months after it was launched, this idea is consumer product, a failure and a conspiracy, or so some would have you believe. There is evidence to sustain only the first of these.
The Great Western Cities released its report ‘Britain’s Western Powerhouse’, authored by Metro Dynamics, last Friday. The launch of the report has received widespread press coverage at both a national and local level, reflecting the level of interest in devolution more broadly across the country.
The Great Western Cities today released its report ‘Britain’s Western Powerhouse’, authored by Metro Dynamics. The report examines the benefits of greater ‘sharing, matching and learning’ between the three city regions – including an influential role for universities, businesses and civil society. The report also identifies major potential for the three city regions in strengthening transport links, expanding renewable energy and improving its international profile.
