Key Cities - annual report to LGA Board 2023

• Lead Member: Cllr John Merry 
• Lead Officer: Jon Stancombe
• Email: [email protected]
• Address: Civic Centre, Chorley Road, Swinton, Salford, M27 5FJ
• Telephone: 07967424591
• Website: Key Cities

The Key Cities Group is a diverse cross-party partnership of councils for urban cities and places, acting as a united voice for Urban Britain. Our membership currently consists of 28 local authorities. These are: Bath & NES, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Bradford, Cumberland, Colchester, Coventry, Doncaster, Exeter, Gloucester, Hull, Kirklees, Lancaster, Lincoln, Medway, Newport, Norwich, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, Salford, Southampton, Southend on Sea, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland, Wolverhampton and Wrexham.

Eligibility to Key Cities is primarily extended to mid-sized cities and places included in the Centre for Cities ‘Cities Index’ as well as other areas which do not fit into this population band but are significant to the wider area in their local economy and to the UK as a whole and have similar challenges and ambitions to the group.

The Key Cities Group aims to provide focus, collaboration of learning and a unified voice to ensure that those cities and places within the group are more visible and are consistently represented in policy-making at a national level. We are working to lobby Government and engage with critical Government Ministers based on a clear and consistent set of key asks and messages which are unique to our group – in order to exert sufficient influence over the national agenda.

What is the group’s purpose?

• To provide a united voice for urban cities
• To make the case for greater investment in our cities
• To share expertise and promote collaboration between cities, sectors and industries to seize post-Brexit opportunities
• Develop policy to strengthen resilience, and improve economic performance and social cohesion in our places

What makes Key Cities unique?

• Uniquely positioned to form the 'engine room' for the UK's economic post-Covid recovery.
• Nimble size and governance are ideal for scalable innovation.
• Available land with room to expand
• Reduced dependence on single industries
• Targeted and sophisticated strategies to support economic development
• Major strengths in manufacturing and exports What do Key Cities offer?
• Strong returns on public investment to boost productivity
• ‘Test beds’ for innovative government policies
• Agility to respond quickly to new opportunities
• A strong partnership with central Government

Group governance

Key Cities is governed by three main bodies:

• Key Cities Full Group: comprised of all Leaders or Deputies, Elected Mayors and Chief Executives. Meetings take place quarterly.
• Key Cities Executive Group: comprised of an agreed number of member Leaders, currently standing at 11, who lead on different thematic portfolios for the group. Meetings take place on average every 8 weeks.
• Key Cities APPG: open to all MPs and peers. The APPG is chaired by John Stevenson MP (Carlisle) and Rebecca Long-Bailey MP (Salford and Eccles) who were reelected together in 2022. Meetings take place quarterly.

Conferences and Events

• Labour Party conference – In September 2022, Key Cities held a fringe event on ‘Creating Healthy Cities’ which delved into the findings of our ‘Healthy Cities’ research, with speakers discussing how our cities could be completely revolutionised by prioritising health within local and national policy. Cllr John Merry chaired the panel which included Dan Norris, Mayor of West of England, Rebecca Long-Bailey MP and Susan Hinchcliffe, Leader of Bradford.
• Conservative Party conference – In October 2022, BCP leader Cllr Drew Mellor spoke at our ‘Whitehall Withdrawal’ event with Core Cities and Onward explored how devolution can support levelling up. There was huge cross-party consensus across the panel, with everyone calling on Government to give local leaders more autonomy, funding and trust to imbalance inequalities across the country.
• Culture and Place in Britain reception - In February 2023, we held a launch event in Westminster for our report on culture which champions culture as a key vehicle for delivering local-led recovery across the Key Cities, calling on government to increase investment in the arts in order to develop cultural ecosystems everywhere and breathe life back into our local communities. The launch event brought together city leaders, national government, cultural ambassadors, vice chancellors and industry leaders from across urban Britain. We were also joined by Laura Dyer, the Deputy Chief Executive of Arts Council England, and Local Government Minister Lee Rowley who spoke specially to endorse our recommendations.
• UKREiiF – Also in May 2023, we held a reception event at UKREiiF to discuss Net-Zero investment, where we officially launched our ‘Levelling-up, Emissions down’ report. Cllr Merry was joined on a panel by Cllr Caroline Jackson and Cllr Shabir Pandor, who called for more devolved powers to accelerate our race to net zero.  They presented their own net zero projects developing locally as examples of some of the significant activity taking place across the network, including the momentous Eden project in Lancaster and the affordable Passivhaus strategy across Kirklees. For the event, we offered Key Cities leaders and officers free passes to meet with a diverse list of high-level investors and developers, and senior civil servants across DLUHC, DEFRA and the UK Infrastructure Bank.

Key projects/workstreams during the year

• Healthy Cities report – In May 2022, we launched our report ‘The healthy city: a futuristic reimagining of the urban economy and built environment’. This report puts forward a compelling framework on how future UK cities and regions might be shaped through the prism of a ‘health-first principle’. The report draws connections between localism, levelling-up, devolution, cost of living and decarbonisation initiatives, and provides guidance for how Key Cities can address the challenges and take the opportunities within their areas. The report has been put forward for the Royal Town Planning Institute research excellence awards and will be presented at the Healthy City Design 2022 Congress later in the year.

• Culture and Place in Britain report – In February 2023, we launched our report on culture, urging the government to prioritise arts and culture to breathe life into our local communities everywhere. Produced in partnership with Arts Council England and informed by all arms of the network, this report champions culture as a key vehicle for delivering local-led recovery and renewal across the Key Cities, calling on government to increase investment in the arts.

• Emissions Down Levelling Up report – In May 2023, we launched our latest report on climate, we commissioned Metro Dynamics and Opergy to undertake this important piece of research work last year and they have identified activity to achieve net zero across our key cities members. They have found areas where local and central government can do more. This report will both explore the ambitious local climate initiatives currently being developed across the Key Cities as well as provide supply side and demand side recommendations on how Key Cities can make impactful strategies towards further decarbonisation with an emphasis on how we combine decarbonisation with local economic development.

• Skills for Cities, Skills for Life report – In July 2023, we will be launching our upcoming report which will be looking at lifelong learning and green skills across all sectors, with an in-depth analysis of skills provision in Key Cities compared with the national picture. This work been informed by all arms of the network, and we are currently in discussion with the Department of Education around potential pilot schemes on ‘the Golden Triangle’, our 3 pronged framework around investment in skills, transport and jobs.
• APPG - We are supported by an All-Party Parliamentary Group in Westminster co-chaired by Rebecca Long-Bailey MP and John Stevenson MP. The APPG developed as an active mechanism to grow the influence of Key Cities and its members. As the only APPG that is directly concerned with urban issues, this group has real potential to directly engage and influence Government on policies concerning urban Britain. Recent work includes
  • Skills for Cities, Skills for Life – In October 2022, the Key Cities APPG brought together member universities of our innovation network to talk directly with MPs to discuss the green economy and skills for life. The focus of discussion was the barriers to upskilling local communities and the need for place-based solutions which require the ‘Golden Triangle’ of skills, jobs, and transport infrastructure.
  • Culture and Place in Britain event –  In February 2023, the Key Cities APPG hosted the special launch of our latest report on Culture and Place in Britain, which champions culture as a key vehicle for delivering local-led recovery across the Key Cities, calling on government to increase investment in the arts in order to develop cultural ecosystems everywhere and breathe life back into our local communities. The event brought together city leaders, national government, cultural ambassadors, vice chancellors and industry leaders from across urban Britain. We were also joined by Laura Dyer, the Deputy Chief Executive of Arts Council England, and Local Government Minister Lee Rowley who spoke specially to endorse our recommendations.
• Innovation network – The Innovation Network is the latest initiative from our Key Cities All-Party Parliamentary Group, of which local economic actors, organisations and businesses within our 28 Cities can join as an Associate Member. We are currently focusing our outreaching efforts to Universities across Key Cities and have already secured the following universities as our newest members: Bath, Bradford, Coventry, East Anglia, Gloucestershire, Lancaster, Salford, South Wales, Southampton, Sunderland and Wrexham.

Collaborative Partnerships

• Department of Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities – The Key Cities collaborates closely with Civil Servants and Ministers across DLUHC, including attendance to the bi-monthly local government stakeholder group, and regular invitations to special Ministerial roundtables to advise on funding streams such as UKSPF and the Levelling Up fund.
• Arts Council England – Following the launch of our Culture and Place in Britain report, Key Cities has been collaborating with ACE in efforts to build up a picture of cultural strategy and priorities across the Key Cities network with the aim of supporting member cities with targeted intelligence and support.
• 3Ci – Key Cities is an official partner of 3Ci, a collaborative effort between local authorities, the Connected Places Catapult, and the private sector, seeks to facilitate financial partnerships between major investors and local leaders. We are currently working together to increase long-term investment in Net Zero projects through a holistic place-based, blended financial model. They provide technical support, host investor-local authority exchanges, and develop a pipeline of local Net Zero projects

Media activity

Key Cities has developed a full PR coverage strategy across a range of relevant topics such as the healthy cities, Levelling up white paper and bill, permitted development rights, – coverage has appeared regularly in publications such as the Guardian, LocalGov, the MJ, the Times, Cities Today, Property Week,  and key regional titles such as Place North West.