Stockton-on-Tees's new Local Economic Assessment

It was my pleasure to be hired under the Local Government Association’s Local Growth Advisor initiative to help Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council complete their 2014 Local Economic Assessment. I undertook this work between December 2013 and February 2014. The...

Local economic development: some home truths

In local economic development the governance and structures will never be perfect. You need to deal with the bureaucracy that comes with public money and not hide from it. Plans and strategies are useful, until the action begins. And you need to focus to be effective,...

Review of LEP area economies 2014

Athey Consulting’s latest report for the LEP Network, released to LEPs on 31 March 2014, reveals a series of insights for local economies in England. The overall message is one of confidence and capability across the Local Enterprise Partnership area economies,...

The Cambridge Cluster: my view

Cambridge is great – I live here and love it. It is massively successful as a tech based economy – but it is small. This scale has meant that infrastructural investment has not kept pace with past growth, or future potential. Cambridge science and tech...