We don't live in a very literate age when it comes to economics. There are still people in Whitehall, even the Treasury, who believe that somehow – if cities decline or fall, if one place succumbs to grinding poverty – that is it the ‘market’ that did it. However...
What we’re doing
Initiatives that are in progress, right now.
Pattern for the people
Does pattern have to be superficial and imitative or can it capture a fleeting moment, the fingerprint of a place or even the spirit of a person? This is the idea behind my latest collection of prints by Dora, made with friends on my local allotments on Spa Hill in...
Towards the next devolution of power
What if Andrew Adonis and George Osborne are right? What if the key question for re-balancing the economy (not a phrase Adonis used) was to force through a major new devolution of economic power to the city regions? What if Michael Heseltine’s was right in his 2012...
The next devolution is economic
We have been working with the New Banking group, and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd, to develop practical policy detail about how to develop a more effective banking system in the UK - one that works for SMEs and local economies. The present banking system is...
Towards a new kind of banking
There is a political trend emerging, and it has been a long time coming. Ed Miliband is calling tomorrow for a more diverse banking system. We know his office has been considering an American-style Community Reinvestment Act, which forces the big banks to set up...
How to re-bank the UK effectively
Our associate David Boyle has been working with Baroness Kramer in the House of Lords (before she went into government) to develop implementable approaches to creating a new local banking infrastructure in the UK. You can read the results here (Re-banking pdf), and...