Restructuring is occurring at the local level and decisions made in the coming years will determine whether communities and local economies sink or swim.
Local Government Archives - Page 142 of 156 - NewStart
With public services being increasingly marketised, a group of local authorities is looking to the co-op model to ensure the interests of local people are protected. Clare Goff reports
Each year staff at the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) nominate projects and initiatives that have achieved positive local change. Clare Goff takes a look at the three winners.
Becoming more commercial, taking some modest risks and worrying a little less about the rulebook is the only way most will stay afloat.
Something needs to be done to address the current imbalance in favour of economic development over other needs. If not the true future costs are likely to greatly outweigh the short-term benefits as we are forced to meet the costs of growing inequality and environmental degradation.
Some communities may simply not have the ambition or resources to enable them to take advantage of neighbourhood planning, leaving them at the mercy of (and in the absence of a neighbourhood plan ‘in agreement with’) potentially unsuitable development because of the NPPF.
The phrase Big Society is banned and you’ll find little kowtowing to the government’s agenda. But Knowsley is still taking a pragmatic approach to cutbacks, discovers Austin Macauley
I think we should be worrying our little heads a great deal over the potential effects of the proposed reforms to voter registration and constituency boundary changes.
We face some stark choices, and for all the government’s talk of rebalancing the economy, there’s little evidence of coherent policy. Will the north become a place where public spending provides an even more minimal safety net for the have-nots while a shrinking group of the well-off live the life of Riley?
All of us interested in creating great places must gaze beyond the present and look at the possible progressive future. We must look beyond crude capitalism, materialism, and an overreliance on public spending and seek local economic alternatives.
