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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23 episodes
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Avg 17 min
English

Episodes 23

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Thursday · 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/
June 4 · 10 min
Two‑speed devolution? What the Devolution and Community Empowerment Act really means for places
With the Devolution and Community Empowerment Act now on the statute book, England’s devolution journey feels more settled but perhaps more uneven. In this episode, David and Mike ask whether the new three‑tier system of strategic authorities accelerates progress or risks locking large parts of the country into a holding pattern. They explore Foundation Combined Authorities, Integrated Settlements, the under‑examined community empowerment strand of the Act, and what LED professionals can do in places still waiting for powers that may never arrive.
May 28 · 10 min
2026 local election results: democratic noise or delivery risk?
In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike unpack what business and institutional investors may be reading into the 2026 local election results in England at a moment when confidence, continuity and delivery matter more than ever. They explore whether governance instability is being treated as background democratic noise or as genuine execution risk, how this compares with the importance of traditional project fundamentals, and what LED and placemaking professionals can do to signal continuity through anchor institutions, clear pipelines and credible communication.
May 7 · 11 min
AI and the geography of opportunity: will it widen regional divides — and what should places do about it?
This is the second in LEDC’s short run of episodes on AI — focusing on the economic impacts on places and what that means for local skills and growth plans. Drawing on live work on local skills planning, David and Mike reflect on how uncertain employers remain about how it will impact their recruitment decisions. They explore the spatial dimension: AI may be transformational for places with dense “intelligence functions”, while a small number may host major data / energy infrastructure. But what about the rest? They cover the practical AI adoption strategies for non‑obvious AI “winners” and what’s already visible in local labour markets.
April 30 · 42 min
Building the plane while flying it: East Midlands Mayor Claire Ward on making devolution deliver
In this episode, David and Mike are joined by Claire Ward, the first Mayor of the East Midlands Combined County Authority, to explore what it really takes to lead a new devolved English region through its first term. She reflects on how newer Combined Authorities differ from the earlier Greater Manchester / West Midlands experience, and building institutions at pace across four constituent authorities as powers, structures and expectations accelerate. They cover how to create a region‑wide narrative and shared priorities, what first‑term success looks like in tangible delivery terms,and why issues like integrated settlements, visitor levies, and broader fiscal devolution matter for shifting to a more flexible, locally‑shaped resource envelope. Mayor Claire discusses the importance of coterminous responsibilities across public services (and the practical challenges when footprints don’t align), collaborations with other mayors, and why better local data is essential if devolution is to drive genuinely place‑specific policy and delivery.
April 23 · 12 min
Has fiscal devolution finally gone mainstream in UK government?
The UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer put fiscal devolution firmly on the table with her 2026 Mais Lecture, including a road map for sharing national tax revenues with English regions. Does this foreshadow a permanent shift of power, or the familiar business rate retention model in new clothing? A model of retaining growth in tax yields without clarity on which public service responsibilities move alongside? Most importantly: what evidence and options should practitioners be assembling to feed into the Autumn Budget, including the role of inclusive growth and the risk of widening divides between mayoral strategic authorities and everywhere else?
April 16 · 11 min
Local Government Reorganisation and the capacity crunch
In this Espresso Shot episode David and Mike unpack the UK Government’s 25 March 2026 announcements on Local Government Reorganisation in England. These included proposed moves from 44 authorities to 16 unitaries across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and the paused decision on Sussex and Brighton & Hove pending further consultation. They ask: Is this good news, bad news, or indifferent for local economic development and placemaking? And what does it mean when reorganisation lands alongside emergent mayoral / sub‑regional governance, with real risks around delivery capacity, 'shadow' arrangements, and keeping LED priorities visible during transition?
April 9 · 12 min
AI in the economic development professional's day job: tools, traps and human judgement
Is AI changing how you do local economic development and placemaking – or just adding noise? In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike share real examples of using AI to augment workshop management, support stakeholder engagement and review business cases, alongside stories of mistranslations and “garbage” syntheses. They explore where AI genuinely augments LED work – and where human judgement, strategic insight and relationship‑building still have to lead.
April 2 · 10 min
What does the "Green wave" mean for local economic development and placemaking?
What happens to local economic development when Green Party councillors and (potentially) mayors become a major force in local government? David and Mike explore the “Green wave” – from housing quality and community ownership to a proposed uplift in local government funding tied to net zero and inclusion – and ask whether our current tools and economic plans are ready for it.
March 26 · 11 min
Is energy now the organising principle for local economic development and placemaking?
Is the capacity of our power infrastructure now the majordeterminant of local and regional growth? David and Mike explore how grid constraints, global energy shocks and local political battles over the net zero transition are reshaping regeneration pipelines, spatial strategies and local economic plans. They ask what role Mayoral Strategic Authorities, non -mayoral areas and infrastructure providers should play as energy becomes an organising principle for LED.

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