By The Alternative UK
22 Jan 2020
Much inspiration to be had from Totnes over the years – birthplace of Transition Towns, for example. Like many, their council has declared a climate emergency – but unlike... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
08 Jan 2020
2019 has been a tumultuous year. While poverty and inequality continued their inexorable rise, the climate crisis finally erupted on to the national agenda. At the same time solutions... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell and Barry Knight
07 Jan 2020
There is widespread agreement across the political spectrum that capitalism is in crisis and we need a new way of doing things. ‘Read the Economist and the Financial Times,’ wrote Michael Jacobs... Read More
By Barry Knight, Maria Chertok, Natasha Kaminarskaya
10 Dec 2019
What does Hull, a city on the eastern seaboard of England, have in common with provincial cities in Russia? Answer: not only have they been left behind by economic... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
04 Dec 2019
This month’s Talking Points focuses on the way our economy works: the role of business in society, Wales’s ground-breaking Foundational Economy model, and the primacy of the local, for... Read More
By Thomas Barrett
20 Nov 2019
This article, by Thomas Barrett, was originally published on NewStart, a website for making places better. Subscribe for just £49 per year here. Wales will be the first country in the... Read More
19 Nov 2019
The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) has launched ‘The manifesto for local economies’, setting out a vision for ‘how the next government should create local economies that serve... Read More
23 Oct 2019
“The Wigan Deal” beats austerity by putting unique human relationships at the core. Does it anticipate a more radical future too? This affecting, even moving video above comes... Read More
22 Oct 2019
A new report from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and Power to Change, Building an inclusive economy through community business, ‘explores how community businesses can support the... Read More
By Jon Edwards
25 Sep 2019
The core premise of Neal Lawson’s ‘45° Change’ is that the post-1945 welfare state approach to dealing with societal challenges has broken down. The neoliberal, market-driven system that has... Read More
17 Sep 2019
The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) have published ‘CLES on… climate emergency’, the third piece in their new series of provocations. It argues that while movements such as... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
11 Sep 2019
This month’s Talking Points ranges widely from US companies’ new professed purpose of improving our society to a change of direction at Joseph Rowntree Foundation, ideas for transforming public... Read More
By the CLES team
21 Aug 2019
Last week CLES hosted the second annual Community Wealth Building Summit, the only event like it in the UK and the largest event in CLES’ history. The 200-strong delegate... Read More
By Thomas Barrett
07 Aug 2019
We are all familiar with the gaps in high streets left as stores close. This article from New Start describes a pilot scheme called Open Doors, to be launched later this year,... Read More
24 Jul 2019
A new publication from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) ‘tells the story of community wealth building (CWB) in Preston’, reflecting on eight years of collaboration. CLES set... Read More
By Dr Hugh Ellis
18 Jul 2019
It might not be immediately obvious why anyone would want to have a relationship with a planner let alone an organisation dedicated to promoting the values of a planning... Read More
By Barry Knight
16 Jul 2019
This article is based on a talk to the Voluntary Action History Society on 10 June 2019. Arthur Marwick said that a society without an understanding of its history... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
09 Jul 2019
This month’s Talking Points reflects on the causes of inequality and puts forward some suggestions for tackling poverty rather than just more ‘bad news’. We also look at the... Read More
By Barry Knight
24 Jun 2019
What follows is the text of a speech given by Barry Knight at a conference of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) on 12 June 2019. The speech... Read More
12 Jun 2019
A new charter, Time to Build an Inclusive Local Economy ‘sets out key steps to harness the power of communities to create resilient local economies’. Developed by Development Trusts... Read More
By Indra Adnan
30 May 2019
CTRLshift is all about ‘shifting control’ from national-level political parties and corporations to the people and organisations collaborating in towns, cities and regions – very much the agenda of... Read More
By Aaron Tanaka
23 May 2019
Editors’ note: In this article, Aaron Tanaka, director of the Center for Economic Democracy and cofounder of the Boston Ujima Project, envisions a new approach for economic development that is... Read More
09 May 2019
CLES last month released a new publication, New Municipalism in London, which highlights ‘the actions of three London Boroughs who are seeking to challenge traditional local economic development and... Read More
By Barry Knight
08 May 2019
Barry Knight attends an assembly of Tyne & Wear Citizens to meet the candidates in the North of Tyne mayoral elections Something is stirring. A new populism is on... Read More
By Roy Payne
16 Apr 2019
The government’s new Working with Communities policy is important because it establishes the principle of ‘community consent’ to long-term planning decisions affecting the local community. This has the potential... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
28 Mar 2019
On 1 March I met with a group of people from Oxford – city council officials, an elected councillor and staff of social enterprise Aspire Oxford – to talk... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
30 Jan 2019
What is community wealth building (CWB)? On the one hand, it seems like a new idea. The Labour Party established its CWB Unit less than a year ago, on... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell and Barry Knight
23 Jan 2019
Here, we follow up the article by Neal Lawson and Caroline Hartnell on ‘45 Degree Change’ and examine initiatives identified by Aditya Chakrabortty in a series of articles called... Read More
By Thomas Barrett
16 Jan 2019
Another great example of how an area can be transformed when the city council works closely with local residents at every stage of a regeneration project, led by ‘what... Read More
By Barry Knight
12 Dec 2018
In all my years of working with voluntary organisations and community groups, I have never been to an AGM like it. The room is packed, the energy high, the... Read More
29 Nov 2018
Last week, we launched our series on ’45 Degree Change’ – the meeting point between the vertical state and horizontal emerging local initiatives. The work of local wealth building... Read More
By Barry Knight and Caroline Hartnell
28 Nov 2018
Moved, humbled, inspired, sad, angry – these are some of our feelings after watching A Northern Soul, a film by Hull-born documentary-maker Sean McAllister, shown on BBC2 on Sunday 18... Read More
By Gill Hughes and Sarah Hatfield
15 Nov 2018
We are Gill Hughes of the University of Hull’s Youth Work and Community Development team and Sarah Hatfield from Timebank. Together, we convene the #thehullwewant project. The project is... Read More
By Sara Bryson
21 Mar 2018
The persistence of poverty, it seems to me, continues because we fail to tackle a central crucial issue: power. We have centuries of writing, analysis and debate in relation... Read More
