W Rossiter

Local economic strategy development under Regional Development Agencies and Local Enterprise Partnerships: Applying the lens of the multiple streams framework

Following the decision to abolish the Regional Development Agencies in England by the newly elected Coalition Government in 2010, Local Enterprise Partnerships were introduced to drive economic development at a local level. However, the limited government prescription as to both the form and function of Local Enterprise Partnerships has contributed to a fundamental ambiguity as to their roles and ‘legitimate spheres’ of activity. In the context of this ambiguity, this article uses Kingdon’s multiple streams framework to consider the challenges faced by Regional Development Agencies and Local Enterprise Partnerships in developing effective economic development strategies. With a focus on the East Midlands region of England, the article identifies the dimensions of strategic capability that Local Enterprise Partnerships must develop if they are to mature as effective agents of local economic development in England.

Institutions, place leadership and public entrepreneurship: Reinterpreting the economic development of Nottingham:

This paper develops a conceptual framework that draws on three discrete bodies of research: institutional perspectives on economic development, place leadership and public entrepreneurship. This framework is used to reinterpret the recent economic development of Nottingham (a second-tier regional city in the UK) with a particular focus on attempts to respond to the challenges of economic restructuring and deindustrialisation over the long term. Examples of public entrepreneurship are seen as forms of recursive agency through which institutions are established and reconstituted in ways that may facilitate adaptation and path creation in local economic development.

A tale of two cities: Rescaling economic strategy in the North Midlands

This paper addresses the implementation (or mediation) of industrial policy at the regional and local level in the northern sub-region of the English East Midlands. At the heart of both New Labour and Coalition Government policy on local and regional economic development was a simple proposition to the effect that if decision-making for economic development could be better aligned to ‘functional economic geographies’, better economic outcomes should result. The abolition of Regional Development Agencies and creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships brought this proposition into sharp focus. This paper explores the consequences of this shift in the spatial scale of decision making for the development process and policy content of place based economic strategies. Strategies produced for three ‘nested’ geographic areas in the north midlands are compared. An apparent tension between economic development and institutional trajectories is considered.

Nottingham Express Transit: The role of green innovation in the drive for sustainable mobility through improved public transport

Traffic congestion at peak times has long been a problem facing cities in the United Kingdom.1 Latterly concern about combating congestion has been hightened by worries over carbon emissions and poor air quality. In tackling these problems, green innovations incorporating new technologies appear to have much to offer, although progress in implementing these sorts of innovation appears to have been slow. This case study analyses the efforts of one city to tackle these problems by pioneering a number of green innovations including the introduction of a light rail system employing trams known as Nottingham Express Transit as well as electric and gas-powered buses. The nature of these innovations is explored together with a detailed examination of how they came to be implemented and the impact they have had.

Green innovation and the development of sustainable communities: The case of Blueprint Regeneration’s Trent Basin development

With nearly one-third of the UK’s total consumption of energy devoted to the domestic household sector, sustainable housing developments have an important part to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat climate change. This study analyses a sustainable housing development in the city of Nottingham in the United Kingdom that takes the form not merely of a sustainable housing project, but rather an experiment in developing sustainable communities. In terms of green or eco-innovation, it incorporates innovations in housing design geared to curbing the demand for energy; technological innovations in energy supply centred on a novel community energy system; and innovations in the governance models employed. The scheme is notable for the novel public–private partnership carrying out the development, which specializes in developments characterized by an emphasis on quality urban design and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.