Good morning and happy new year.
Today I’m filling in for Stephen while he enjoys the last vestiges of festive leisure.
So I thought I’d start 2025 the same way I started 2024 by looking at the upcoming march of England’s mayors and the rewiring of the British nation.
blocker or builder
Once again, decentralization is hailed as a key principle in a vaguely defined central political strategy. Under the previous government, it was a matter of “leveling up,” but for the Minister of Labor it was a mission of growth.
As always with documents like this, please also refer to the 2022 Leveling Up White Paper. Its mission is quickly forgotten, but the UK’s White Paper on Decentralization, published just before Christmas, was touted as a game-changer.
In reality, much of it is about sorting out the patchwork of devolution in order to achieve some coherence between the UK’s heads of state. This is part of the reason why it didn’t cause much excitement.
Nevertheless, the proposed new powers for long-term spatial planning are worth a closer look, as ministers stake them out as part of their growth agenda.
As I wrote in November, local public and private sector leaders alike believe such powers are fundamental to attracting investment.
This new power will give mayors a higher level of ability to plan for long-term development across commuter and school districts, beyond municipal boundaries, which have little relevance to future job creators.
Realistically, if you could say to an investor, “This place doesn’t have a tram connection yet, but in five years it will have a tram connection, and it will be connected to the city center and new housing estates.” The difference between hundreds of jobs getting there or going somewhere else. Probably to other countries.
Of course, such a mandate comes with potential political pain once the blueprint begins to transform from an abstract concept to a concrete proposal.
The same applies to the Mayor’s additional powers for individual planning applications contained in the White Paper. Mayors outside London will also be able to overturn planning decisions made by local authorities, a power currently reserved for Sadiq Khan.
When I asked Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham about this at the White Paper launch, his response was eloquent. Mr Burnham was already working on spatial planning, and his own long-term blueprint for the region had been stuck in the green belt policy quagmire for years.
Was he seeking such convening powers? “To be honest, I didn’t make the point,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Sometimes you get something you didn’t necessarily expect.”
Will he use them? “Good…I’m going to talk to the 10 (council) leaders about it.”
Well, he might be, because such power has the ability to disrupt very delicate political models. Mayors outside of London rely on collaboration with a collective of local city hall leaders to get things done.
To give a hypothetical example, South Yorkshire’s local planning committee might reject an application for hundreds of homes in green belt areas.
The mayor could reverse his decision, deciding the development is essential to long-term growth and worth the risk to his re-election chances. However, not all power lies in the hands of the mayor. Next month, the mayor may need the same council’s consent to fund a bus reform plan.
Of course, this is all about the political realities of getting things done. I think a big part of the government’s calculation here is that if mayors want more decentralized power and glory, they need to make the hard decisions themselves.
It is worth noting that seven years ago, the Conservatives lost control of Trafford City Council in Greater Manchester, in part due to their insistence on greenfield housing. On the contrary, who were the beneficiaries of the election? The Labor Party is now led by Andrew Western, who is now the Pensions Minister.
So while Keir Starmer is declaring war on “blockers” to get controversial things built, some of the people he puts in that category are historically his own. Some are from tribal backgrounds.
Indeed, it remains to be seen whether mayors (most of whom are now Labor) will be blockers, builders, or seek to strike a precarious balance on the dividing line.
Ministry of Rewiring
Beyond the mayor, Angela Reiner’s department hasn’t stood still since the election.
In the last two months of 2024, the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government has announced a number of policies and proposals.
This includes a new national planning policy framework, on which consultation was quickly ramped up before the summer holidays.
In mid-December, the ministry announced plans to abolish all local councils, with ministers prepared to wage a noisy first-term fight in the name of simplifying local government maps and further decentralization. suggested something. Although some degree of restructuring was expected, its scale surprised the industry.
MHCLG also oversaw an overhaul of the top of arm’s length housing regeneration agency Homes England. He has had a rocky relationship with Michael Gove’s department and a patchy delivery record, but is likely to be a key figure in the Labor government’s bold housebuilding ambitions.
The department also quietly abolished the Gove Local Government Authority on December 16, less than 18 months after its creation. Oflog’s role was never completely clear, but it has created a useful dashboard detailing how messed up individual councils are financially.
Two days later, the department announced a consultation on a new audit system for the sector, including the creation of local audit bureaus. This essentially restructures parts of the audit committee that were abolished by the coalition since 2010.
Some such overhauls will not be done in time. In December, auditors had to reject 361 local authority opinions from 2018-23, which shows how many unknowns the system for checking council accounts unravels. It proves that points are being accumulated on the industry’s books. It now has its own influence on Whitehall.
Of course, most of them aren’t headline-grabbing, but they fall into the category of significant wiring changes. And MHCLG’s electricians are clearly very busy.
But rewiring is only part of the story. 2025 will be about the elephant in the room: money.
Where housing and regional growth are concerned, as with many other things, all roads lead to the government’s comprehensive spending review in June. Simply rewiring a battered old system without buying new parts may only get ministers and mayors so far.
go ahead and try this
Both of today’s recommendations prove that Manchester’s interesting cultural gems are increasingly making their way into the cheaper nooks and crannies surrounding the ever-growing city centre.
The annual How Harry Met Sally Christmas viewing is a bar/street food/cinema/gaming/all-inclusive entertainment venue located between Red Bank’s Railway Arch and lower Cheatham Hill. Enjoying it at the Cultplex was a huge improvement.
We also heartily recommend Malay Malay, a mouth-watering Malaysian restaurant on Broughton Lane in Salford. On dark winter days in the north, homemade pandan and lemongrass tea is a panacea.
A 20-minute walk out of town down Bury New Road, you’ll see Strangeways and its surroundings, once a half-shuttered counterfeiters’ preserve, much like the arches around Red Bank. I was also reminded that the warehouse district will likely look completely different in 10 years. .
Today’s top news
Policies to watch in 2025 | Here’s the government’s progress so far on Keir Starmer’s ambition to drive ‘change’ across housebuilding, investment, skills and health, and what to watch in the coming months I will summarize the contents.
New Year’s Promise | In his first New Year’s address as British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer promised a “year of rebuilding” for Britain in 2025, acknowledging that “there is still much work to do”.
Read the book | Ways to put a price on NHS patient data and subsequently streamline the sale of the information to companies and researchers are being considered by UK regulators as part of proposals to mine the value of the health service’s vast records. are.
Labour’s ‘bonus MPs’ | Some of the 33 Labor MPs elected in non-target seats are hoping to make a big impression when taking on unexpected roles, says Jessica in the Guardian – Elgott revealed this in interviews with new candidates, including Neil Duncan-Jordan, Mr Poole’s first Labor MP. and Terry Jarmy, who defeated Liz Truss in Norfolk South West. Please register here
FT Opinion — Insights and judgments from top commentators. Please register here
