Re-thinking local: think piece series

'Recovery presents opportunities to drive public service reform with local knowledge and experience at the very forefront of policy design and delivery'

'Deep cracks in society have come to the fore, characterised by health, wealth, work and housing privileges, which have made this period so much more challenging for some.'

'Councils are ideally placed to drive economic recovery, maintain social cohesion, peace and reconciliation, develop preventative health partnerships to aid emotional recovery, and drive the Green Economy'

'Meeting the current and future housing needs of our population should be a huge priority but we are failing to provide anywhere near the number of homes needed each year to meet existing and newly-emerging need.'

'Investment in local carbon industries can leverage existing strengths and areas of advantage, help with meeting climate change targets, and provide long-term economic growth and employment opportunities.'

'Great social care needs to be relevant and important to everyone in a locality by contributing to local wellbeing and prosperity.'

As we start to plan how we can ‘build back better’, we have a perfect opportunity to work with our partners to develop a plan for a better future for everyone – and Sustainable Development Goals can help us get there.

'If we are to rethink housing in relation to place, we need to boil down what housing can and should achieve to its concrete and fundamental economic and social role.'

How do we combine our efforts, capacity and resources to best contribute to and facilitate local economic growth, strengthen community resilience and place the wider determinants of health very much at the heart of our joint agenda?

People want individual services to be better joined up, so a person’s multiple needs are met in a way that makes sense for their lives, and not just what makes sense for statutory bodies.

Colleges need to be at the heart of our meeting these challenges – as centres of lifetime learning, in providing strategic support to employers with innovation and skills and as community hubs, addressing digital literacy and wellbeing.

We need to urgently change the way we regulate the quality of new homes and places.

During lockdown, library services worked tirelessly to support their communities. Buildings may have been closed; libraries were not. 

There remains a significant need for improved transport provision within our urban areas outside London.

When we re-emerge from the pandemic, we must ensure that community engagement is placed at the centre of locally-based placeshaping.

Losing local leadership and democratic oversight will not sit well with local communities if they watch local needs, concerns and accountability trashed.

A properly resourced and empowered planning system run in places, by places and for places would enable various funding sources to be drawn together to achieve outcomes.

For many of us the high street has been something of a salvation over the past six months in particular, the place where the changing picture of the government’s COVID-19 response has been most vividly illustrated.

One of the big lessons from the Covid-19 crisis is that beyond the boundaries of statutory services, we have seen communities brimming with people willing to help one another.

It’s everybody’s responsibility to build, and maintain, safe spaces for young people; not simply identify young people who come to harm in such spaces.

'We have a vested interest in making sure that the public health system in England is match ready for whatever comes its way.'