The old order is no longer sustainable and yet our leaders still pursue the same economic model, hoping to attract investment from the likes of China and India
This is the full text of a letter in the Birmingham Post this week written by Localise West Midlands Associate and Vice Chair, George Morran:
Dudley Council’s bid for City status seems to be based on the view that the only hope for our economic future lies in attracting investment from the likes of China and India. But though Wolverhampton has had City status for ten years and Birmingham for decades, this label appears to have done little for their economies. Giving these large amorphous local authority areas a label does not change the real world for their residents and businesses. In the United States and many parts of the world all towns and larger urban areas are called cities.
The economic model, which has for decades been the basis of the economic policy of governments, has to be questioned and we urgently need to look for an alternative which is more sustainable.
Our ever greater dependence on credit, inward investment and globalisation has failed; it brought down the banks and led to the cycle of withdrawal of credit, business closures, massive public expenditure cuts, redundancies and a very significant downturn in economic activity. The old order is no longer sustainable and yet our leaders still pursue it.
Dudley’s bid for city status is premised on the view that the Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council area is of long standing when it was only created in the early 1970s. The establishment of our Metropolitan Councils was driven by a view that the efficient and effective delivery of local public services was only possible through large all-purpose local authorities. At the time this was a plausible argument. However the ongoing privatisation and fragmentation of services alongside increasing control of London has undermined this logic and the relevance of large soulless LAs. Their capacity to represent and act for local communities and businesses will be further undermined as local schools opt out of LA control.
Rather than wasting time on seeking city status we need to back a more localised approach to economic development. Our manufacturing needs to be more closely linked to the production of goods for local consumption; more attention needs to be given to localised food and energy supplies and generally a more low carbon, green economy. We need to back local rather than international ownership of production; we need employers and the employed to be more involved locally.
The existing local authorities are neither small enough to connect with local communities or big enough to promote an economic development that embraces markets which link the producers and consumers of goods and services, including food and energy. We need a coordinated and coherent approach to economic and political development. We need Westminster and Whitehall to be downsized and their resources and powers transferred to much smaller local authorities based on towns and villages with which local communities identify.
The effective delivery of economic development and some public services do need markets larger than even the biggest local authorities which connect the rural and urban, town and country. The delivery of these services cannot be left to individual local authorities – large or small – to cooperate; this will simply not happen and if it does is likely to be very inefficient and not directly accountable to local people. Some services including the localisation of economic development need to be the responsibility of directly elected authorities with the appropriate powers and resources. Such authorities would give the people of the West Midlands a fairer deal and enable them to play a more effective part in a renewed UK.
