Constraints on growth – what’s holding our cities back?

Growing our successful cities is very much the topic of debate at the moment. With discussions about devolution, combined authorities, metro-mayors and growing the economy, cities are the centre of attention for much of our future planning and aspirations. One of the key question that emerges from this debate is whether or not cities are up to the challenge. In some areas, such as Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds we can see the challenge being welcomed and responses to government demands met pretty quickly. In other areas, perhaps where growth is already positive and complacency the order of the day, then responses are slower, more deliberate and less positive. The recent report by IPPR and Shelter “Growing Cities” takes a look at four growing cities identified as being held back by chronic housing pressures – York, Cambridge, Oxford and Bristol. For anyone living in and around Bristol, the fact that Bristol features will come as no surprise, we’ve been struggling with how to deliver housing growth for many years. The report discusses the need for better tools and powers to enable cities to build more homes with local support – this is about better planning, not less planning as is the popular call of our current government. The report identifies four main areas where change is needed:

• Co-operation across local authority boundaries
• Unlocking stalled sites
• New models of development
• Overcoming the limits of growth: green belts

These issues have consistently been identified by research and reports as limiting housing growth, but whilst solutions have been offered few have actually been adopted, at least not ones that make any noticeable difference. So, what would addressing each of these issues mean in the Bristol area and how likely is it that things will actually change? I’ll take each issue in turn and discuss some of the points raised by the report and how they could play out in this area. Firstly, co-operation across local authority boundaries is something that has been discussed endlessly in the Bristol city region and I have blogged about before – see “the devolution debate”  “a mayor for greater Bristol” and “a confusion of governance“. In particular, the idea of co-operating on housing growth seems to be something that Bristol and its neighbouring authorities have a real problem with. Bristol and South Gloucestershire as a successful economic hub have to some degree focused on how and where to deliver housing growth, and to some extent seem to be able to work together on aspects of this process. The same could not be true across Bristol’s southern border, into North Somerset, where the whole idea of housing growth seems to generate only negative comment and response. Indeed in the latest issue of North Somerset Life (the council’s own regular newsletter for residents) the council leader, Nigel Ashton, once more took the opportunity to rant about housing:

“We are waiting for the Secretary of State to make a final decision on the number of homes we will forced to allow developers to build between now and 2026. At the moment it looks like 21,000 which we think is too many. At the same time, we have tentative estimates from regional discussions which will decide how many more dwellings we will have to provide in the next planning period of another ten years, up to 2036. North Somerset’s share could be another 15,000. This is all because the Government listens to developers’ views of the need for more dwellings, not the local authority.”

An interesting take on how his own Government assesses housing need and demand! One of the critical issues about this debate is that North Somerset Council (NSC) refuse to acknowledge that they have any role in providing housing to support the needs of the city region. Their only concern is to provide sufficient housing for North Somerset residents and not the ‘overspill’ associated with Bristol. So, it is safe to say, that unless sensible housing numbers are imposed on NSC, they will do little to co-operate with Bristol on housing matters. This is a situation exacerbated by the ridiculously tight boundaries surrounding the city and the fact that most of the land for expansion is outside of the control of Bristol city council. The idea suggested in the Growing Cities report is for greater incentives for co-operation and increased penalties where that doesn’t happen. The idea of setting up a Joint Strategic Planning Authority and a Local Homes Agency to provide strategic direction and pro-active planning is a good one and something that is much needed in the Bristol city region.

The second point about stalled sites is also critical. To date, what seems to have happened with too many of the stalled sites in Bristol is that permissions have been re-negotiated and development supported at the cost of affordable housing provision. So anything that changes this current imbalance of power away from developers holding all the cards, and back to local councils who do want to kick start development, has got to be a good starting point. Changing the powers within the planning system to enable councils to unblock sites in favour of quicker development could work, but you need a willing council to begin with.

The third suggestion is about providing power to local councils to proactively drive new large scale development through the designation of New Homes Zones (NHZ). Large sites in this country take decades to develop from start to finish. One of the important aspects of this approach is the freezing of land values (plus an element of compensation) as soon as the NHZ is designated which would generate significantly increased ability to provide for new affordable homes, infrastructure and services. In Bristol, within the council boundary, there would be little opportunity to designate such a NHZ as the land is just not available, but on the outskirts in NSC or South Gloucestershire, the potential is there but would it be realised?

The final suggestion is about encouraging sensible ways to grow our cities with urban extensions close to existing city boundaries. In Bristol this is not a new idea, the much maligned Regional Spatial Strategy proposed several urban extensions to the city, particularly to the south east and south west of the city. These extensions would inevitably be in what is currently designated as green belt around the city. But just consider the alternative, we continue to build on every possible site in the city, with all the consequent problems and issues for quality of life that this brings, or we jump the green belt and provide for unsustainable settlements further away from our cities. Surely a re-assessment of our green belt is needed? The Growing Cities report suggests setting  up Green Belt Community Trusts to help strike a better balance and identify the possibility of building small, sustainable suburbs or extensions where infrastructure already exists. Another good suggestion, but it is one that requires a significant change of attitude.

The Growing Cities report is full of good suggestions and ideas, and practical solutions that could indeed make a difference. However, to make the change and deliver the homes that are needed will require a significant change of attitude, perception and willingness on the part of local politicians, planners and communities. Otherwise, we will continue to see the resistance to change, growth and development that have plagued the area for decades. That leadership and direction needs to come from the Bristol Mayor, the other council leaders,  the Local Enterprise Partnership and from local communities themselves. Sadly, evidence from some quarters on the desire for change is somewhat lacking. Perhaps it’s time for politicians and partnerships to step up to the challenge before it’s too late?

Bristol – a divided city?

Bristol – a divided city was the subject of a short documentary produced by BBC One for Inside Out West (sadly no longer available to view on iPlayer). The story is one of a growing city, one that on first glance seems prosperous and wealthy, but once you scratch beneath the surface and move out of the centre of the city, a poorer, less wealthy and altogether different kind of city is revealed. The programme served to illustrate just how different people can experience the same city, how different areas of a city are excluded from the growth and opportunities that others benefit from and how so far we have largely failed to provide solutions that make a real, long-term difference. Sally Challoner, BCC reporter, provided a picture of the divided city with a snapshot of some truly shocking statistics outlining just how many children live in poverty in our so called prosperous city – 25% across the city as a whole, but with massive differences depending on where you live – 53% in Lawrence Hill and 34% in Southmead, but only 1% in Henleaze.

The quote below is from Sally’s reflections in the programme on growing up in Hartcliffe and so neatly sums up the reality facing many people in Bristol –

“Of course, growing up in poverty you don’t really know any different. It’s only when you go out into the wider world that you realise that maybe your education wasn’t great, your family doesn’t have any business contacts to give you an idea of how to get into the employment market, your parents can’t help you with a deposit to get you onto the housing ladder, things like that. So you start out life with a disadvantage and spend years just trying to catch up.”

In the programme itself and in a Radio Bristol discussion the same day there were two key points raised that I thought I’d explore further, as I believe they are both flawed in their explanations and solutions:

• With a strong economy, providing more jobs, everyone will benefit.
• We need more money & power from government to solve the problems of poverty in our city.

The first point was made by a Tory MP and is an often quoted response to poverty and social exclusion – if we just provide growth and more jobs everyone will eventually benefit. Indeed, it’s the very argument used by the Local Enterprise Partnership and the business community for focusing our economic plans on existing growth sectors and areas rather than having anything real to say about areas and communities traditionally excluded from the benefits of growth. I am firmly signed up to the school of thought that says ‘trickle-down’ economics doesn’t work, just providing lots of jobs won’t solve poverty in our cities. Of course it helps and a growing economy is certainly better than one in recession, but growth on its own does not provide opportunities for all people and communities, it doesn’t overcome the problems that exist in the poorer areas of our cities. If it did, the growth experienced in the 1980s and beyond would have changed the social and economic map of Bristol. Instead, we find the same areas of Bristol featuring in the most deprived areas of the country now as we always have, the same ten communities with high poverty indices now as 10, 20, 30 years ago. The sooner decision makers and politicians in Bristol accept this the sooner we can move on from flawed policy approaches that clearly do not work.

The second point was made by Bristol’s Mayor, George Ferguson, and whilst I would agree that more money and/or greater ability and power to do things differently in Bristol would be a help, it will only work if we stop seeing poverty as something completely separate to economic development and growth. It reminds me of the debate about environmental issues 20 years ago, when environment was seen as separate, something that should be dealt with separately and not relevant to the council’s core business. Putting things into neat little silos is not the answer, it just makes it easier for everyone to ignore it or assume it’s someone else’s problem. That’s what used to happen to environmental issues, and it’s what we are in danger of doing with issues relating to poverty. Surely part of the answer has to be using what resources and power we already have to address poverty as part of every policy and strategy area. Why treat it separately?

Other areas seem to have taken up the mantle of combining economic development and poverty, of creating Strategic Economic Plans through their LEPs that have alleviating poverty and social exclusion as the main purpose of their plans – see an earlier blogpost I wrote on this for some examples – (Consigning trickle down to the dustbin of poverty). The challenge in Bristol is how we make this happen when the current approach appears to be about creating silos of activity – poverty according to the LEP is not their problem, someone else is dealing with that, they are just about jobs and growth. How do we encourage the business community and the LEP to see alleviating poverty as integral to the growth of the city region, to increasing out prosperity as a city and to truly achieving the potential that the whole city has? How do we ensure that future City Deal’s, Strategic Economic Plans, bids for funding and Council strategies and plans all have addressing poverty at the heart of them? A tall order no doubt, but until we do, then we are consigning the same communities to living in poverty, in a world where the divide between rich and poor is ever increasing.

Consigning ‘trickle-down’ to the dustbin of poverty

There’s some excellent debate being generated at the moment about economic growth and poverty, with Joseph Rowntree Foundation, New Start Magazine and Centre for Local Economic Strategies leading the way with some excellent reports and blogs over the last few weeks. Whilst I’m not sure I can add much more to what has been said, there are a few key points just worth pulling out and exploring in a local context, to illustrate where we might learn something from this important discussion.

What much of this debate boils down to are the following key observations:

• trickle-down doesn’t work
• economic growth and poverty can’t be tackled separately
• gap between rich and poor is widening

Perhaps the biggest issue that needs emphasising is that trickle-down just doesn’t work – disputed by some, but more accepted now than ever before, is the notion that if we create enough jobs and prosperity then everyone will benefit eventually is a myth. A myth supported and promoted by those that do benefit, by those that wouldn’t understand poverty as they have never experienced it and/or by those that actually just do not care – it’s an easy cop out for decision makers and politicians, it’s easier just to see economic growth as the solution without having to worry about other things, that are all too complex! So the focus is on economic growth, as a separate policy, without looking at difficult things like poverty and inequality of opportunity as these are dealt with by others in different policies and strategies.

But, as Neil McInroy of CLES points out “what’s the point of local economic development if it does not deliver social outcomes or address poverty” – exactly, what is the point? Growth for growths sake, that marginalises issues around the distribution of benefits is pointless, it merely serves to increase the wealth and prosperity of those that already have wealth to begin with, rather than address the very real issues of poverty experienced by many people in our cities, towns and rural areas.

Seems pretty obvious when you distill the debate to such simple concepts doesn’t it? So why is the government still entirely focused on approaches to economic growth that retain obvious silos around jobs/GVA/GDP?  Perhaps it’s a continuation of an approach that seeks to demonise those in poverty, who may not have a job (although many do), and who dare to claim benefits from the state or seek ‘handouts’ in the form of food and housing? Or maybe it’s just a natural fall out from our national political focus on austerity and Plan A, with all activity centred around reducing the deficit by hitting those hardest who actually have the least? Whatever the reason our government seems to be ignoring the obvious, that is doesn’t work, and not only that but they are imposing their views and approach on us at a local level. Councils and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are producing economic strategies that focus on jobs and GVA growth, because that’s what’ll get the money from government and that’s what they’ll be assessed against.

Some areas, though, do seem to have the ambition and critical thinking ability to go beyond the government brief and to draw the connections between growth and poverty and to bring their own local agendas to their economic plans. For example, as discussed by Josh Stott of JRF in New Start Magazine, the Leeds area seems to be doing something different by working in partnership to address poverty as part of the economic strategy, by linking the two agendas together and acknowledging that poverty reduction is very much on the agenda of the council, city region partnership and others. Manchester is doing something quite interesting too, by working with CLES to look at how to build a local civil economy, in a report which outlines the importance of civic leadership where it is everyone’s responsibility to shape the destiny of the city by working together – difficult to argue with that but so often not how decision makers and politicians see things.

However, not everywhere seems to be embracing this agenda or taking the opportunity to challenge the government over the narrowness of theirs. I’m sorry to say that, to me at least, it looks like Bristol and the West of England are following the silo mentality of government and through the Strategic Economic Plan developed by the LEP and supported by all four local councils, are merely seeking to grow jobs and GVA in the hope that this will eventually, somehow, benefit all those in need. The plan has a heavy focus on ‘return on investment’, mentioned endlessly as perhaps our biggest selling point – if the government give us the money we’ll make more money for them and the UK economy than anywhere else outside of London. So we draw up a strategy that does that, focuses on high growth sectors, where productivity is high and can be further improved, where multiplier effects are greatest.

But, and this is a huge but, so what? What benefit does that provide us with locally and more importantly who will benefit? Not those in the most poverty, not those in low quality jobs and not those who need it most. And, of course, anyone who dares to challenge this is accused of lacking ambition, or being uncomfortable with growth and change and not wanting the best for Bristol. Some of the business community have very strongly promoted the notion of critical mass and the need for growth and prosperity, which of course we will all eventually share in. Sadly they seem to be missing the point – this just doesn’t work and the evidence is there to clearly show that it doesn’t work. So why do business leaders, the West of England LEP and some of our politicians constantly fall back on this outdated, irrelevant notion? Is it because it serves existing implicit agendas, suits those already in power or those who are doing quite nicely out of the way things work at the moment, or is it just they don’t care or don’t understand? I can hazard a guess at the answer, as I’m sure you can!

So the question remains, what needs to change to make this work better? The report by the Smith Institute (the subject of a recent blog) talks about the need to reform LEPs and focus on ‘good growth’ which at least would be a start. But, change needs to happen quickly, before these plans get set in stone and form the future of our economic policy locally and nationally. I’d like to see business, politicians, LEP members take the economic growth and poverty agenda on board properly, with ambition and clarity, because why wouldn’t you?

Is ‘good growth’ the way forward for LEPs?

Once more the discussion turns to growth and prosperity, with the launch of the Smith Institute report on ‘Making local economies matter’ written by John Healey MP and Les Newby. This new report looks in detail at the policies lessons to be drawn from how the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) worked and assesses the early experience of their replacement bodies – Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). It’s a timely piece of work, that follows on neatly from the JRF report on Economic Growth and Poverty (which I blogged about here) and has been produced in time to feed into political manifestos and policy debate leading up to the 2015 General Election.

I don’t intend to do a full review of the report, as I am sure others will cover that better than I can, but I will draw out a few key issues that resonate with my experience of LEPs and where concerns have been raised before. There is much to be welcomed in this report as it provides a good discussion of many of the big issues relating to local economic development, the role of LEPs and who decides where priorities should lie. When you look back at the RDAs it’s interesting to note just how much wider their role was than the partially self-imposed narrow role that LEPs seem to have taken up. RDAs did have a long term vision for physical and social regeneration, and the important point to note here is their role in ‘social’ aspects not just economic and physical regeneration and growth. This is definitely something missing from the LEP remit. They also planned for the long term and set out a strategic vision, without the RDAs we seem to be moving back to short term bidding for funds and delivery of government programmes without any long term vision available for what we are actually trying to achieve. Clearly a mistake, as this leads to lack of coherence, lack of coordination and an inability to really address the issues that matter.

The report picks up on 7 key areas where policy changes or improvements are needed in relation to LEPs, these are set out below:

• sub national economic development role
• geography and functional economic areas
• issues LEPs should cover
• funding and capacity
• type and culture of LEPs
• accountability
• monitoring

I don’t intend to cover all of these areas, just the ones I think are most important. So, I’ll start with the debate around functional economic areas (FEA) and how we ended up with the LEPs we have now. In my experience this was definitely a local political decision, influenced heavily by local authority politicians and officers who were keen to keep FEAs to fit with local council boundaries. In the West of England this was certainly the case, as others tried to encourage discussion about a wider geography, potentially focusing on the M4 corridor or linking with Gloucester/Cheltenham urban area, the council representatives were keen to close this down and ensure the boundary fitted with the four local council areas. Is this the best FEA or could it be better? It’s certainly the smallest in geography and population of all the core city LEPs and sits within the list of smallest LEPs in the country only just hitting the 1 million population mark. I guess it works as a city region, but only just, and it could have been far more creative and innovative to go with a different geography based on where the growth really is and potentially far more powerful if it had encompassed other growth areas.

For me though, the biggest issue that this report raises is that of regional and local disparities and the role of LEPs in addressing these. The analysis at the beginning of the report makes it clear that because much of the initial funding to LEPs was based on a flat rate, that actually meant the smaller LEPs, often those in the most prosperous areas, got a higher rate of funding per head than those most in need in the least prosperous areas. There’s an interesting debate here that I recall from various business discussions in the Bristol city region – do you invest in the areas that are most able to provide growth and GVA contribution to UK plc or do you invest in those areas that most need it. Of course the conclusion to that discussion in Bristol is very much focused on invest here because we can contribute more as a prosperous and growing area. However, all that does is increase the regional disparities that already exist and consign other areas of the country to continued decline, whilst areas like Bristol do quite well and continue to prosper. It’s an interesting conundrum for any government to address and the current approach seems to be giving to those that already have rather than those that don’t, but surely not an approach that can continue indefinitely?

This, of course, also all comes back to how you define growth, the subject of another blog I wrote recently – Economic Growth & Poverty. In the Smith Institute report they talk about ‘good growth’ being the aim rather than economic growth and argue that the concept of growth that the LEPs are addressing needs to be clarified:

“The concept of ‘good growth’ or ‘sustainable economic development’ infers a focus on achieving growth and on the way in which it translates into employment, incomes and opportunities for disadvantaged communities, and low carbon/environmental benefits. Adopting a good growth agenda for LEPs should support wider policy messages about the need for growth to a make difference to people’s pockets and to reduce poverty.” (p.58).

Now if the role of LEPs were to be widened to encompass this concept of ‘good growth’ then the Single Economic Strategy for each LEP area would look very different and would have to address issues in a much more holistic manner than the current SEPs do – what a welcome change that would be! But LEPs cannot do this on their own, the local economic plans would need to be set within the context of a national plan – a national strategy for addressing regional disparities and one that focuses on areas of disadvantage. This would enable LEPs to address similar disparities at a local level and focus on the issues that really matter rather than those that fit neatly with certain funding pots.

There’s clearly a big debate to be had about the issues that LEPs cover, and to a point this depends on other issues, such as accountability and nature of the organisation. If LEPs continue in form and structure as they are at the moment, with such a big emphasis on less than transparent appointment processes, focus on business and little role for representatives from other sections of society, then I suspect any widening of their role will be resisted from all sides. However, if accountability is improved, processes of appointments to the LEP boards are opened up and clear output based measures are introduced to assess and monitor performance, then there could be a wider role in strategic planning, housing and social regeneration.

I look forward to seeing how the debate progresses, but certainly for me the important issue here is the focus on a different type of growth – good growth – that translates growth into addressing inequalities and disparities and doesn’t rely on ‘trickle-down’ as a means of ensuring everyone benefits.

Economic Growth & Poverty

Are we asking the wrong questions?

In February I wrote a blog about economic growth and poverty that talked about why a focus on creating jobs and GDP growth wouldn’t actually tackle poverty. This followed some excellent work from JRF on Cities, Growth and Poverty which concluded that there is no guarantee that economic growth reduces poverty. At the time I was particularly concerned with the role of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and the Strategic Economic Plans (SEPs) they were developing. In discussions arising from my blog, I found many people ‘defending’ the position of LEPs on the basis that their remit is clearly to create jobs and grow GDP; they are not there to address social issues, apparently, that is for local authorities and others to deal with. Therefore, the SEPs being developed would of course be focused on jobs and GDP growth and not a lot else – they are after all merely plans to extract funds from government rather than real plans created to deliver what is actually needed in an area – they are dancing to the tune of central government! The questions this leaves us with are:

• Should we be planning for economic growth that doesn’t address core issues, like poverty and inequalities of opportunity, in an area?
• Are we addressing the wrong question to start with?

What I mean by the last point is, what if economic growth isn’t our best option, what if the question should be about something else entirely. To consider this, think about what makes a city a good place to be, what makes our neighbourhoods great and what do we enjoy about life – is it really just about having a job and earning money? What got me thinking about this issue again was two things; one was losing my job last year, which is pretty life changing and makes you think about what you really value in life and what motivates you; the other was some reading I was doing for an essay. The essay was on whether or not capitalism is compatible with an environmentally sustainable world? The reading around this subject sent me back to Jonathon Porritt’s book “Capitalism as if the world matters” something I read in 2007 when it was first published, and to books I hadn’t read before – Joel Kovel (The Enemy of Nature) and Tim Jackson (Prosperity without Growth), all brilliant books in their own way and all presenting different approaches to the same question with different responses and solutions.

What struck me most was firstly, trying to put together some compelling facts about the ecological crisis we face and what it looks like was not as easy as I thought it would be – I couldn’t find in one place the key facts around the issues I wanted to present and finding up to date statistics on key issues was pretty difficult. Secondly, there was something compelling about each of the different arguments presented, I could have accepted elements of all of them – I summarise (inadequately) the key points below:

• if capitalism (neo-liberalism) is about continual growth then in a finite planet this can never be compatible with environmental sustainability, and capitalism is to blame for many of the ecological crises we face – true?
• capitalism reforms and evolves to provide solutions to the problems it causes, so technological advances will help us to solve the ecological problems we face and growth can continue – possible?
• within a capitalist world alternatives already exist in different places, traditional growth can be stopped and prosperity can be measured in a different way that doesn’t rely on increasing personal consumption – yes?

And so to my main point, and maybe I am coming at this a lot later and slower than many who have been pushing some of this agenda for a fair while (such as those involved with Happy City) but the point is – should we be focused on measuring prosperity as a city/city-region/area in terms of economic growth alone, or is there another way? And would that other way be more inclusive? That’s not to say that we all stop worrying about having a job, earning money, buying a bigger house, taking holidays, etc but that we stop seeing these as the key to personal status – a process we all seem to get trapped in to a greater or lesser extent. Maybe part of the answer is about introducing a range of other measures that cover things like, quality of life, governance, education, health, and environmental/ecological resilience rather than money, economic growth and consumerism.

We tried this, sort of, in 2010 when David Cameron launched the National Wellbeing Programme – a new way of measuring wellbeing and measuring our progress as a country in a different way! In his speech, however, Cameron made it very clear that this was not an alternative to focusing on economic growth and GDP growth rather it was just an add on – “growth is the essential foundation of all our aspirations” apparently and by that he meant economic growth. So we can measure wellbeing, but not at the expense of GDP or other economic measures, because they are more important! The quote below on the government’s own website sums it up perfectly:

“It’s important to say that this is about neither replacing GDP nor creating a ‘happiness index’. The objective is to complement the more traditional economic measures used by policymakers and to provide an additional way to think about what we value and the progress we’re making as a society” National Wellbeing Website.

So not really a particularly worthwhile Programme then and it certainly doesn’t seem to have changed anything for the better – we are living in a more unequal society now than we were a few years ago, there are more people in poverty with less access to even a basic quality of life, more people using food banks, more people excluded from a housing market that seems to cater for those with money and exclude those who really do need somewhere to live! The question remains – are we measuring the wrong things?

This seems a particularly pertinent question a the moment, with the recent publication by the Post Crash Economics Society (PCES) at Manchester University which talks about how economics is being taught in Universities and the type of economists this is producing, as well as why those same economists were incapable of predicting the Financial Crisis of 2007/08, issues discussed by Alex Marsh in his recent podcast ‘rethinking post-crash economics‘. It also comes at a time when Thomas Piketty’s book ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century‘ is receiving much acclaim for its questioning of a system that leads to the “growing concentration of income in the hands of a small economic elite” – powerful stuff but what will be the response?

But what’s all this got to do with LEPs and SEPs – well probably nothing and that’s the point, they are addressing entirely the wrong issues, focused on economic growth and jobs, with little or no view about quality of life and equality of opportunity. So does it matter that these plans and partnerships are drawing up plans and bidding for funds that will make little or no difference to the majority of people in their area – no probably not? We are focusing on not only the wrong question but the wrong plans, we should perhaps be focused on plans for “prosperity without growth” on plans that focus on those most in need and address the very real issues they are facing. Plans that are about creating quality of life for everyone not just the select few and that show no tolerance or acceptance of poverty and inequality. Those are the kind of plans I would like to see developed and I hope they are already there or in progress, but I see little evidence of this in practice – I wait for others to tell me they exist!

Postscript – interesting article in The Guardian, published 29-4-14 about Bhutan and their pursuit and measurement of Gross National Happiness rather than GDP

Economic Growth & Poverty – LEPs take note!

There is no guarantee that economic growth will reduce poverty – that’s the conclusion of some excellent work by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on cities, growth and poverty. I was so pleased to see this report published recently because it reflected the exact point I had been trying to make about the Strategic Economic Plan currently being developed by our Local Enterprise Partnership in the West of England.

My initial views on the West of England LEPs plan for economic growth are set out here in a comment piece for Bristol 24-7 and in an earlier blog here – they’re quite critical about the lack of any attention to inequality of opportunity and the lack of an overall inclusive vision for the city region. The main point being that the plan seeks to focus on GDP/GVA and jobs growth, through key sectors and key locations. None of which does anything directly to address the fact that key areas of the Bristol city region suffer from multiple deprivation and poverty. My contention here is that you can’t have  a plan for economic growth that ignores poverty, the plan needs to be based on that very issue and grow from there. Instead of which what we have is a plan that neatly seeks to sweep whole geographical areas and difficult issues under the carpet and pretend they don’t exist.

The answer of course according to the LEP is to create jobs and grow GDP because that solves all our problems and makes Bristol a more prosperous place. However, as the JRF report points out, productivity and output growth have little short term impact on poverty, and jobs growth will only have a positive impact on those in poverty if the sectors, type and location of jobs are targeted and focused in a way that makes them accessible to those that most need them. I see little evidence in the Strategic Economic Plan for the West of England that suggests this is either their focus or their intention.

To my knowledge, the same areas of Bristol have been in the bottom 10% of the most deprived wards in the country for some considerable time now, they include Ashley, Filwood, Hartcliffe, Lawrence Hill, Southmead and Whitchurch Park. These are all areas where we know there are problems, where unemployment is high, food and fuel poverty are real issues, educational attainment is low and there is a generally a more low skilled workforce. These are also areas that have been the focus of significant levels of regeneration funding and resource over many decades, but yet the problems persist despite these interventions, possibly because we can only ever touch the surface with short term funding or maybe because the interventions were the wrong interventions and not enough has been invested over a long enough period of time?

To my mind the Strategic Economic Plan currently being developed by the business led, unelected, unaccountable quango that is our Local Enterprise Partnership should be where these issues are addressed; where the focus of our attention is on jobs, skills, housing and infrastructure improvements to bring opportunities to the areas that really need them. The reality is that what we have in the West of England is a plan that will merely reinforce the status quo. It will provide jobs in sectors and locations less accessible to those that really need them and will invest funding and opportunities in areas where development is already happening. Why do we need to support and invest more resource in the Science Park, Avonmouth/Severnside, Bath Riverside when these areas are already being developed? Why are they more worthy of infrastructure, funding and support than South Bristol? One has to seriously question the logic that says we will support what is already happening rather than use new resource to make real change where it is most needed. Add to that the fact that the plan is somewhat reluctant to talk about housing which is surely a major cost of living issue for many. Some serious work is needed in this plan to address issues of housing supply and affordability, but once again the plan is found lacking in this respect – perhaps another issue that is just too difficult to deal with?

The danger of the LEPs current approach is we fall into the trap of tackling growth separately to poverty, rather than using growth as an opportunity to address issues of poverty. By doing this we miss the opportunity to really make a difference and we also miss the opportunity to get the most out of growth and realise the true potential of the Bristol city region. With a focus on poverty reduction the economic plan could boost economic growth, productivity, income and spending power as well as reduce the welfare burden. By not addressing poverty we reinforce existing divides and consign whole areas of our city to ongoing poverty and all because we don’t have the vision or ambition to really do something about it.

So what can we change and what needs to happen? It is probably too late to really influence the LEP plan, because let’s face it, they don’t really want to know and will maintain their inherent bias and focus on extracting money from government, to the government’s agenda rather than a local agenda based on need. The answer – an alternative plan? or a groundswell of activity to boost jobs and growth where it is needed? Or just maybe, enough of a challenge to our politicians to make them listen, to be brave enough not to just go along with the LEP and its plan, to change it? One can live in hope!