LED Confidential

Podcast about local economic development and placemaking. Co-hosted by Mike Spicer of PolicyDepartment and David Marlow of Third Life Economics. Mike, David and guests address the divisive, often unspoken issues facing economic development professionals in 2020s Britain.

Website:
www.ledconfidential.co.uk

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32 episodes
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Avg 19 min
English

Episodes 32

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November 5 · 11 min
Mayoral Development Corporations: the delivery vehicle that sticks or the latest new toy?
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike ask whether, after four decades of institutional churn in English regeneration, mayors have finally found a delivery vehicle that sticks. Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs) have grown from a London device to nine across England. They include Birmingham East, an £11bn programme targeting 50,000 jobs and 20,000 homes, and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act now lets every mayor set one up. Yet Greater Cambridge’s development corporation is centrally led, and Teesworks still casts a long shadow. David and Mike discuss the “new toy in the toolbox” temptation, a sub-regional landscape crowded with overlapping zones, and competition for scarce delivery talent. They also explore why inclusive growth and community ownership must be built in from day one.
October 29 · 12 min
Heathrow’s Infrastructure Skills Council: future of labour market policy, or a very Heathrow answer to a very Heathrow problem?
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike ask whether every major infrastructure project should have to show not just what it will build, but who it will employ. They unpack Heathrow’s new Infrastructure Skills Council, co-chaired by Lord Blunkett and Robert Halfon and endorsed by Alan Milburn, and its plan for 5,000 apprenticeships, traineeships and entry-level opportunities. They set this against a runway timetable now slipping to 2039, the 2014 pledge of 10,000 apprenticeships by 2030, and a new statutory consultation launched this Autumn. They discuss why a three-year delay is so consequential in skills planning, the lessons from HS2, and competition for scarce civil engineering and construction workers.
October 22 · 45 min
Three pathways, one sector: early career economists in economic development
In this special guest episode, David and Mike hand over the conversation to three early career economists on three different paths. William Hamilton is a former ODI Fellow in Fiji who has just joined the Asian Development Bank. Luke Green is an economic geographer with Insights North East at Newcastle University. Megan Smith is a consultant at AMION and an IED Rising Star nominee. They compare how deliberate their routes really were and why so few graduates know LED careers exist. They also discuss what support has actually mattered, from the IED mentorship scheme to the “invisible” mentoring that teaches researchers that rigorous and useful aren’t the same thing. Looking ten years ahead, they ask what AI means for a profession whose early-career groundwork is how people learn, and why judgement, interpretation and stakeholder work will matter more.
October 15 · 11 min
Local government reform: England pauses, Scotland redraws
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike look at local government reform on both sides of the border. On 7 September England withdrew reorganisation decisions for Essex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Norfolk and Suffolk, and paused 14 more. Two weeks later, Scotland proposed replacing its 32 councils with six to ten regional authorities and 120–160 community authorities. Drawing on LEDC’s reform manifesto, they challenge the “unitary myth” and the “savings myth” and ask whether either the UK or Scottish governments passes the David Waite test: start with what you want to achieve, then design the structures. They also discuss the funding cliff edges that running reorganisation and devolution at the same time can create, and whether UK Ministers will now cherry-pick the easy wins on LGR rather than launch a full re-start.
October 8 · 47 min
Universities under pressure: can their place-anchor role survive the sector's cash squeeze?
In this guest episode, David and Mike are joined by Professor Andrew Jones, economic geographer and Vice Chancellor and President of Brunel University London, to ask whether universities can keep playing their anchor and civic roles as their finances come under strain. They explore what being an anchor means in the Heathrow functional economic area, an economy roughly equal in size to that of Wales. They cover why long-term industry partnerships outlast grant-by-grant projects, and why Andrew sees economic development as "art and curation" rather than a simple science. They also discuss what a research-intensive technical university looks like, how FE and HE can build better pathways for NEET learners as AI reshapes jobs, and whether universities are becoming more or less rooted in place.
October 1 · 12 min
Civil Service secondments to Mayoral Strategic Authorities: the capacity building we need?
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike ask whether the Civil Service secondments to Mayoral Strategic Authorities announced in August 2026 represent real capacity building or an under-powered initiative at a time of intense pressure. Eighteen MSAs will each receive five to ten Whitehall civil servants for six to nine months, alongside access to the Future Leaders Scheme, a Yorkshire and the Humber fast stream pilot and a digital devolution programme. They compare this with longer-term, externally funded efforts such as Bloomberg Philanthropies' programme with LSE and the Health Foundation's three-year mayoral regions programme, and ask whether Whitehall really holds a pool of skills that strategic authorities can't find locally. They consider whose capacity the scheme is really building, the potential for culture change in Whitehall, and why a flat allocation lands very differently in large, mature authorities than in smaller, newer ones.
September 24 · 9 min
The return of onshore wind to England: can host communities reap the benefits?
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike ask who stands to gain as onshore wind returns to England after a decade under a de facto ban. With around 45 applications in the year to March , the highest in ten years, and capacity entering the planning system roughly quadrupling, they look at what England can learn from Scotland, which has more than 10 GW installed, a 20 GW target and a long-standing community wealth-building ambition. They weigh the gap between Scottish ambition and delivery highlighted in CLES's Blown Away report, the choice between community compensation and community ownership, where the boundary of 'community' should be drawn, and whether Local Growth Plans and Spatial Development Strategies should set onshore wind targets of their own.
September 17 · 10 min
New NPPF: homes, compute and the energy and water question
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike ask if the new National Planning Policy Framework, published on 17 August 2026, offers an approach that is optimised for local economic development and placemaking or remains primarily a framework for building more homes. They unpack what has changed: a default yes for homes near well-connected stations, a new medium development category, easier approval for employment and clean energy schemes, and stronger support for AI growth zones and data centres; and why that last change collides with hard limits on energy and water, with individual data centres requesting up to 3 million litres of water a day. They also explore new mayoral call-in powers and Spatial Development Strategies, the case for appraising uses on GVA per megawatt or megalitre, and whether councils have enough planners to make it work.
September 3 · 39 min
Scotland's tripartite governance test: can devolution go beyond Holyrood?
In this guest episode David and Mike are joined by David Waite, Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow, to ask what Andy Burnham's "Manchesterism" means for a nation whose devolution architecture is tripartite - involving the UK and Scottish governments and local authorities. They examine Glasgow City Region's bid for a £400 million integrated settlement as Scotland's clearest test case yet, and discuss why David Waite's research counsels caution on importing the mayoral model wholesale. For LED and placemaking professionals across the UK, it's an exploration of what regional empowerment can look like outside the mayoral template.
August 27 · 11 min
What can World Cup 2026 tell us about economic geography?
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike use World Cup 2026's chaotic build-up and predictable result as a provocation about devolution and place-based funding. If a 48-nation, multi-billion-pound tournament still produced exactly the semi-finalists the rankings predicted, what makes anyone confident that Integrated Settlements and Mayoral Strategic Authorities will dislodge the pre-existing hierarchy of UK places? They debate whether the analogy holds once you widen the lens beyond football and why Cape Verde's run to the knockout stages raises a genuine question: would any UK place be brave enough to define its own economic specialism rather than chase the same national growth story as everyone else?
August 20 · 10 min
LSIPs: the local skills plans more of us should be talking about
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike make the case that England's new wave of Local Skills Improvement Plans might be among the country's most sophisticated skills planning exercises yet. They trace the leap in quality from the 2022 Trailblazer LSIPs through the first England-wide wave in 2023 to a markedly stronger second wave this year, with employer engagement running to hundreds of businesses per catchment and scale analysis of skills needs from job descriptions. The conversation weighs genuine institutional change, such as FE colleges setting out their approaches to LSIP delivery in their annual accountability statements, against a harder question: are LSIPs actually disrupting the supply side of skills, or doubling down on existing routes to delivery? For sector professionals, it's a prompt to treat LSIPs as inspiration for future strategies in other areas of LED and placemaking practice beyond skills.
August 13 · 8 min
Heat mortality and local economic development: who owns the agenda?
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike unpack why, in the shadow of an estimated 2,700 heat-related deaths in England and Wales this summer, longer-term adaptation to heatwaves still lacks clear strategic leadership in local economic development. They explore how heat mortality and productivity loss concentrate in older housing stock, deprived neighbourhoods and outdoor trades, and contrast the near total absence of statutory duties for heat with the governance architecture built around flood risk. For LED and placemaking professionals, it's a call to treat heat adaptation as economic infrastructure, not just a cost.
August 6 · 10 min
Manchesterism beyond Manchester: blueprint or category error?
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike ask what Andy Burnham's "Manchesterism" actually means for the rest of the UK now that he's setting policy from Downing Street. They unpack the concept and explore if it can or should be transplanted to geographies without Greater Manchester's nine years of mayoralty and 25 years of AGMA before it. They discuss how the same policy goal can demand different delivery models in different places, and ask if national government is about to reward places that already have institutional capacity while leaving others further behind. For LED and placemaking professionals, it's a sharp prompt to map their own convening architecture before reaching for the Manchester playbook.
July 23 · 44 min
What do MPs really want to know about devolution? LED talks to the House of Commons Library
In this guest episode, David and Mike are joined by Mark Sandford, senior research analyst at the House of Commons Library, to explore what MPs actually want to know about devolution, local government finance and place. Mark explains how the Library's strictly impartial briefings have shaped debate on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act, the Fair Funding Review 2.0, Local Government Reorganisation, and how mayoral devolution has shifted in under a decade from political suspicion to cross party orthodoxy. The conversation covers what a move from discretionary grants to assigned tax revenues could mean for the mayor–Whitehall relationship, the risk of a democratic deficit in reorganised local authorities, and how a more fragmented five-party political landscape may change what MPs need to know. LED and placemaking practitioners will take away a clearer sense of how to frame evidence for Westminster audiences.
July 16 · 11 min
Planned for or planned around? Mayoral Strategic Authorities and the rural development gap
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike explore whether Mayoral Strategic Authorities can genuinely deliver whole-geography growth or whether the devolution model is structurally biased toward cities and large urban projects. They examine the gap created by Defra's non-participation in Integrated Settlements, which leaves MSAs with formal rural responsibilities under the D&CE but without equivalent rural funding levers. David sets out why appraisal and business case development systematically disadvantages dispersed, rural geographies where fewer beneficiaries, smaller project pipelines, and thinner institutional capacity mean that they routinely lose out in any funding model designed around scale. Mike explores what LED professionals can do now, before any reform, including investment in the development of a rural project pipeline and pushing the right-to-request agenda into Defra territory. The May 2026 local election results, which showed a growing divergence between core cities and their rural hinterlands, add political urgency to a structural economic challenge.
July 9 · 41 min
Has Belfast cracked inclusive innovation?
In this guest episode, David and Mike are joined by Dr Adrian Johnston MBE, Innovation Commissioner for Innovation City Belfast, to explore whether inclusive innovation can be measured in practice. Adrian explains how Innovation City Belfast, a partnership of seven anchor institutions built around the £1bn Belfast Region City Deal, moved beyond GVA and patents toward a broader "inclusion capital" framework covering economic, human, cultural and social capital, using proxies like "social graphs" and self-efficacy to track whether prosperity is genuinely shared. The conversation covers the Belfast Inclusive Futures visioning process, the city's ambition to be the UK's healthiest and most productive city by 2035, the spatial equity challenge of city-centre-led innovation, and how devolved regions outside London and Greater Manchester might frame policy differently.
July 2 · 10 min
Council borrowing controls: protecting taxpayers or constraining growth?
In this Espresso Shot, David and Mike unpack the UK Government's new capital risk framework for local authorities — a consultation launched on 28 May 2026 proposing powers to monitor debt, investment, and revenue sustainability across every council, with intervention triggers where thresholds are breached. At the time of recording six councils remained under Section 114 intervention; 37 others were in receipt of around £1.9bn in Exceptional Financial Support. Mike asks whether this represents proportionate governance or Whitehall micromanaging the financial distress it helped create. David argues the real problem is the local government finance system itself: designing a compliance framework around Woking and Thurrock while the majority of councils face structural distress from rising adult social care and SEN costs is a category error. For LED and placemaking professionals, the central question is whether tighter borrowing rules will constrain the regeneration finance that makes growth possible in the places that most need it — and whether the consultation is an opportunity to shape the outcome.
June 26 · 11 min
1 million young people outside the UK labour market: system failure or generational fault line?
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike unpack Alan Milburn's interim review findings into young people and work — a diagnosis that names nearly 1 million 16–24 year-olds as not in employment, education or training ("NEET"), at an estimated economic cost of £125bn annually, and describes a "generational fault line" in the UK labour market. They explore the structural drivers behind the crisis: why ill health is a major cause of NEET status; how remote working and national living wage policy have reshaped entry-level opportunities; and why this problem clusters in particular places. David asks whether the Milburn Review risks reproducing a youth-employment-focused intervention without addressing underlying place-based system failures in coordination, while Mike explores the demographic pressures on recruitment in foundational economy sectors, and what this could mean for demand for young workers.
June 18 · 9 min
When growth assumptions collide with population health: healthy life expectancy and local economic strategies
The UK’s latest healthy life expectancy figures published in Spring 2026 have been described as a watershed moment, and for local economic development they raise uncomfortable questions. In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike explore what falling healthy life expectancy, widening spatial gaps and changing population dynamics mean for the growth assumptions embedded in many local strategies. They ask whether places should still be planning primarily for growth or whether resilience and the prevention economy now need to sit at the heart of LED and placemaking.
June 11 · 41 min
Tooling up the profession: what local economic development practitioners need now
In this episode, David and Mike are joined by Dr Glenn Athey to discuss the state of professional practice in local and regional economic development. Using Glenn’s new handbook as a springboard, they explore why delivery capability has become such a binding constraint on place based change, how years of austerity and institutional churn have hollowed out professional capacity, and what today’s practitioners need in order to do the job well. From evidence and judgment to curiosity, stakeholder engagement and getting out from behind the screen, this is a practical conversation about how to build stronger individual and organisational capability for the work ahead. Access the handbook: https://lredhandbook.com/

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