Building back better and building beautiful have to be grounded in ‘genius loci’ – the spirit and harmony of the places and localities in which we are creating well-designed homes and delivering the vital infrastructure to renew or create strong communities. Beyond homes themselves, the discretionary decisions made in local policy around the public realm cast long shadows in determining the character of places, potentially for generations.
Our placemaking workstream seeks to examine the role of housing and infrastructure in promoting opportunity and prosperity, the role of investment in leading renewal and the role of planning in creating successful and sustainable communities.
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Solving the housing crisis, a stated but unrealised goal of successive recent governments, is both a generational challenge for policy and a hugely significant potential investment in place. That a crisis exists is well-rehearsed, but its hydra-like, multifaceted nature must be stressed. The housing crisis is principally one of supply, with not enough homes being […]
The South East of England, often perceived as a beacon of affluence and economic success, presents a paradoxical challenge to policymakers. Beneath its reputation as a prosperous and “overheated” economic hub lie stark inequalities and financial pressures that are increasingly testing the resilience of local governance. A decade of austerity has eroded the capacity of […]
In English local government, the ‘golden triangle ‘of chief executive, monitoring officer and chief finance officer – who exercise their leadership responsibilities to own and champion good governance and effective financial management in local government – is a well-established model. Beyond the functional corporate responsibilities, the culture for ensuring financial sustainability across local government requires […]
In the context of an evolving public procurement landscape, local authorities in England are grappling with multiple challenges and opportunities. An increasing strategic turn in procurement is being reflected by legislative reforms, notably the pending Procurement Bill, which aims to simplify and modernise the system. However, the responsibilities of the new reforms for local authorities […]
In autumn 2021, Localis published ‘Plain Dealing – building for flood resilience’. The study took for its context the sense that development on flood risk areas sits at the intersection of the housing and climate crises. In the three years since publication 22 named storms have made impact on the UK and Ireland – In […]
The institution that is the Great British Pub holds value to the country in many different ways. At the local level, pubs are high street anchors, cultural catalysts and agents of social cohesion – nationally, they represent an important contributor to the economy and the Exchequer. Running deeper still is the place that ‘the local’ […]
Driven by the dynamics of a new political cycle, we are on the edge of a major shift in the way we go about delivering local public services. The circumstances call for a reform agenda encompassing the positive hopes of devolution and community empowerment without shying away from the sombre realities of limited fiscal headroom […]
While not programmes for government in their own right, manifestos act as an indicator of how government will be used as a vehicle and what direction it will be travelling in. For local government, the party manifestos present an insight into the position the sector will occupy in the policy agenda of the next Parliament, […]
In the context of a national housing crisis, soaring global temperatures and sluggish productivity growth, the next political cycle is likely to be characterised by the vexing problem of improving the public realm in a situation of parlous public finances. Recent crises have left the state with very little fiscal headroom, yet the political and […]
As a word, consent derives ultimately from the Latin verb consentīre which means “to share or join in a sensation or feeling, be in unison or harmony. But when it comes to creating a sense of harmony in our localities, regions, and with an eye to the next general election, that sense of national unity, how, at […]