Coalition doing too little to deliver growth, warns Lord Heseltine
I am doing a presentation at a Town and Country Planning Seminar in the East Midlands on 12 November.
The thrust of my argument is that after 50 years of steady growth the UK economy has entered a period of long term instability, in such a situation we need to move away from traditional approaches to expecting growth to look after itself.
We need to concentrate in this situation on helping, particularly rural communities, to develop their sustainability through local “endogenous” processes. If this is to be achieved traditional planning approaches which restrict development in smaller rural settlements and increasingly sever the link between where people work and live (also bad from a carbon point of view) need to be re-thought. The new approach needs to recognise the ability to be economically active in any locality is important to neighbourhood sustainability and a key in unlocking the innate creativity of people.
Forget conservatory extensions and replace them with the opportunity to make and sell things in your own backyard!
As this article explains Lord Heseltine sort of agrees! Well he at least argues that local agents of change (local government and LEPs) should be beefed up and that there should be a serious high level and renewed focus on growth.
“Lord Heseltine was commissioned by the Chancellor George Osborne and the Business Secretary Vince Cable earlier this year to carry out the review with a remit to investigate how the Government could more effectively create growth and wealth in the UK economy.
But rather than focus on narrow economic policy recommendations Lord Heseltine’s report entitled ‘no stone unturned’ is effectively a blueprint for entirely new relationship between central and local government.
In it he recommends:
* Devolving up to £50 billion worth of central Government spending to councils and Local Economic Partnerships while at the same time restructuring local Government to abolish district and country councils and replace them with unitary authorities. He also recommends holding whole council elections once every four years to encourage long term decision making.
* Abolishing the Coalition’s arbitrary civil service pay ceilings to attract talent from the private sector while strengthening and formalising relationships between business sectors and that department’s that regulate them.
* Creating a new National Growth Council chaired by the Prime Minister, supported by a dedicated secretariat and with a minister appointed to ensure that the Council’s decisions are implemented on the Prime Minister’s behalf.”