By Barry Knight
13 Jan 2022
If Martians landed on Earth tomorrow, they would be surprised by many things, but they would be shocked by an economic system that allows a few billionaires to play... Read More
By Eleanor Radcliffe
28 Dec 2021
On the eve of COP26, and with the challenges we face in tackling the climate crisis becoming ever more apparent, CLES and Carbon Co-op today release a major new toolkit for councils, a... Read More
By Mariona Sanz
09 Dec 2021
UK Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) Chief Executive, Sarah Longlands, spoke last month at La Metròpoli Pròspera, organized by the Metropolitan Strategic Plan of Barcelona. Following her appearance... Read More
By The Alternative UK
11 Nov 2021
Some quietly achieved radical localism and community wealth building going on in North Ayrshire. While the Preston Model, and its underlying logic of community wealth building, have been lauded... Read More
By Isaac Stanley
07 Sep 2021
On the 6th July CLES launched the final report of the Liverpool City Region Land Commission: Our Land. Reflecting the findings of England’s first Commission to review the use of... Read More
By Frances Jones & Eleanor Radcliffe
12 Aug 2021
Thirteen years ago, the global financial crisis prompted human suffering across the world. In the wake of this, community wealth building emerged as an alternative approach to local economic... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
05 Aug 2021
Probably the key challenge for all those committed to progressive causes is how we scale up from the multitude of creative initiatives taking place locally. ‘At local level, we... Read More
By Tom Lloyd Goodwin
29 Jun 2021
Economic recovery from COVID-19 will be a long and painful process. When the pandemic struck, we at CLES argued for a new common-sense approach to economic development based on the... Read More
By Barry Knight
09 Jun 2021
We have the ideas for change It is now more than three years since Rethinking Poverty began to compile resources to support the development of a good society without... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
04 Jun 2021
The results of May’s 2021 local elections will have dismayed those who care about progressive causes, as showcased in Rethinking Poverty. But can we learn anything from them about... Read More
By David Burch
08 Apr 2021
On 11th March, we released our yearly analysis of the contribution that Manchester City Council’s procurement spend makes to the city’s economy and how it can support the achievement of wider... Read More
By Isaac Stanley
20 Jan 2021
Green New Deals aren’t just for cash-flushed central Governments. In the last year, Lewes DC in East Sussex has been growing its own distinctive variety of green economic strategy.... Read More
By Eleanor Radcliffe
03 Dec 2020
With fresh discussion this week about the importance of a green recovery, it is increasingly clear that post-Covid rebuilding must have a just transition away from a carbon-based economy... Read More
By The Alternative UK
26 Nov 2020
As we noted in our Editorial last week, the Biden presidency (assuming it kicks off eventually by Jan 30th) may have a worrying tendency to top-down policy direction. Which... Read More
By Neil McInroy, Joe Bilsborough & Charlie Fisher
14 Oct 2020
Just over a year ago, our organisations – the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and Development Trusts NI (DTNI) – jointly penned Time to build an inclusive local... Read More
By Rethinking Poverty
07 Oct 2020
This month’s Talking Points picks up August’s discussions of the changing world of work and the knock-on effects on cities. It also looks at the inexorable rise of poverty... Read More
By Neil McInroy & Tom Lloyd Goodwin
09 Jun 2020
Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, our economy was failing many people and the planet. The imperative then was to create an economy that serves our needs, and shares wealth... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
20 May 2020
Almost a year ago, on 1 March 2019, I met with a group of people from Oxford – city council officials, an elected councillor and staff of social enterprise... Read More
By Neil McInroy
18 May 2020
For some in the local economic development community there is talk of a post crisis “bounce back” – reflective of an idea that the economy is on a purely... 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
24 Sep 2019
Last month we announced the launch of Common Wealth’s Green New Deal project, a series of reports that will aim to serve as a ‘comprehensive road map for a... 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
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
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
13 Mar 2019
On 6 March, the RSA Inclusive Growth Commission published their new report Inclusive growth in action: Snapshots of a new economy. In the face of a British economy that... Read More
By David Burch and Neil McInroy
20 Feb 2019
From time to time a new policy concept emerges, which seems to capture the mood and desire for a certain type of change. Today in economic development that phrase... Read More
By Caroline Hartnell
30 Jan 2019
What is community wealth building? On the one hand, it seems like a new idea. The Labour Party established its Community wealth building Unit less than a year ago,... 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
