As climate shifts worldwide, councils across England are being hit by increasingly extreme weather patterns including violent storm surges, unbearable temperatures, and widespread flooding. Even under the most minimal of warming scenarios, infrastructure, public health, and GDP will all worsen due to the weighty pressure of extreme weather events. If action is not taken, the […]
Like ‘Building Back Better’ or ‘Levelling Up’, the ambitious cross-government Net Zero Strategy risks a fate as a vapid if effective slogan if the overriding domestic political issues, the long-term failures in economic, energy and social policy are not addressed at the level of place. According to the UK Government’s Net Zero Strategy, central and […]
Just short of 250,000 new council homes were built in 1953. Housing minister Harold MacMillan permitted local authorities to build as many homes as there were applicants on the waiting list. The last year in which the current target of 300,000 homes was exceeded was in 1969, when 307,000 homes were completed: with the help […]
As the impacts of climate change become clearer every year, the UK must be better prepared for the manifold impacts of extreme weather events, including floods. In England alone, some 5.4 million homes – one-in-six – are at risk of flooding, with many of them susceptible to surface water flooding. Flood resilience is a public […]
The UK is committed to reaching net zero by 2050, with numerous pieces of legislation enshrining the target and backing this politically. Understanding what needs to be done to drive decarbonisation, and what accompanying opportunities there are for increasing prosperity in the long-term, is crucial to realising this goal. Across the public sector landscape, this […]
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the context of a clear national mandate for levelling up, public organisations and councils across the political spectrum are waking up to the idea that there is a great deal more they can do in partnership with residents and communities. The Connected Society is a policy […]
There is perhaps no better barometer of local economic health than the local high street. Rightly or wrongly, nothing gives such an immediate impression of a place. And the recent pandemic has highlighted the importance of having a good local high street or town centre as we have rediscovered the pleasure – and sometimes the […]
The UK’s housing stock represents one of the most significant challenges to overcome in achieving net zero emissions by 2050. While measures around new buildings will be important, decarbonising nation’s existing housing stock is a priority for net zero policy, given that 80% of the houses people will be living in by 2050 have already […]
As one of only three regions of the country to be net contributors to the Exchequer, the role of the South East region in advancing the levelling up agenda for national renewal remains pivotal. Resetting the South East investigates the role of the South East region in Levelling Up, and what is necessary for its […]
The Levelling Up White Paper, released in February 2022, represents the most significant, comprehensive and wide-reaching UK government statement on devolution, geographic inequality and regional political economy in at least a decade. The paper filled the intellectual void at the heart of the ubiquitous Levelling Up Agenda with a theory of disparities between places and […]