Were there any doubt that the government’s “levelling up” agenda is explicitly designed to exclude London and Londoners, Michael Gove has dispelled it. Appearing before a committee of MPs, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up demonstrated beyond doubt that his job has little to do with addressing geographical inequalities across and within the whole […]
As well as providing knavish politicians with a setting for making empty pledges, the plight of the handsome Hammersmith Bridge has highlighted how confusing ownership of and responsibility for Thames crossings of every kind is, and demonstrated how daft and disastrous the consequences can be. How did things get to a stage where an important […]
The increase in funding for local government announced in yesterday’s budget was described by Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies as “a big change in direction” that “will be welcome in town halls” but added that it will nonetheless “still leave spending lower than in 2010” and the Office for Budget Responsibility has […]
On 6 October the government officially ended the £20 weekly uplift to Universal Credit it had introduced at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, arguing that it had been a temporary measure to support households in the depths of the crisis that is not longer necessary with the economy returning to a more normal state […]
Croydon Council will be led by a directly-elected Mayor (DEM) in future after voters expressed a strong preference for switching to the mayoral system at a local referendum held yesterday. Of the 58,897 people who cast votes, an overwhelming 47,165 chose to adopt a mayoral model, while only 11,519 opted to retain the current leader-and-cabinet […]
In his Introduction to the Conservative Party’s 2019 general election manifesto Boris Johnson said his government had already mapped out a programme to “level up, spreading opportunity across the whole United Kingdom”. The document said this meant “not just investing in our great towns and cities, as well as our rural and coastal areas, but giving […]
In Silvertown, there stands a very large, very handsome and very derelict building called Millennium Mills amid 65 acres of land that’s been in need of redevelopment for decades. Lying to the south side of the Royal Victoria Dock, it wasn’t lifted by the 1980s Docklands regeneration wave, or by a later plan involving a […]
Sadiq Khan has distributed the bulk of his most recent affordable housing funds from national government to London housing providers, with an emphasis on building new homes for social rent. Councils and housing associations have received shares of £3.46 billion from the Mayor, a figure which accounts for most of the £4 billion City Hall […]
