Blog
Charlotte Alldritt
In the fast-paced game of city-devolution, one-upmanship drives many of the players: can this government fulfill the promises of its predecessors by delivering localism and rebalancing the economy? Can this city-region secure the most ambitious deal? Can those local authorities put aside entrenched politics to show central government it means business? It seems that competition can, after all, be a powerful lever of local dynamism; Lord Heseltine’s City Challenge Fund and the ethos of bidding for funds has perhaps been based on the right idea, but only once the stakes seem high enough to generate real results.