Local Government
We have all suffered the annoying experience of having the sole of a shoe ‘flapping about’ because it has come apart and needs gluing back to the shoe, or having buttons missing on a shirt! Or, things left broken on a shelf for ages, the niggly stuff like how to remove stains, or some practical ‘good old advice’ for a bugging issue.
With public sector funds pulled the government is pitching the private sector as the future of regeneration. But is it doing enough to ensure private coffers will flow and are businesses willing to make the leap towards greater responsibility? Clare Goff reports
Victorian philanthropy had its flaws, as Hilda Brailsford, one of the oldest residents of Ironville, a village in Derbyshire set up and run by the local iron company, remembers. The Butterley Company may have provided housing, a school and other community facilities for their workers and their families and won acclaim for its planning, but Brailsford has no misty-eyed nostalgia for the low pay and poor housing her family suffered.
