Conservative Party Conference 2022 – Localis Fringe Events
This year Localis will be hosting all its Conservative Party Conference fringe events on Monday 3rd October in the decorous settings of the Banqueting Suite in Birmingham City Council’s historic Council House in Victoria Square. The venue is outside the secure zone and a seven minute walk from the conference centre.
After the gold rush – levelling up for a decade of opportunity in Birmingham
Monday 3rd October from 9.00 to 10.00
Synopsis: How can England’s second city, Birmingham, capitalise on the Levelling Up agenda to realise its full place potential?
Fresh from the success of hosting the Commonwealth Games, and awaiting the boost which the arrival of HS2 will bring, Birmingham is poised to go forward and achieve a golden decade of opportunity and prosperity as England’s second city.
To do so it will have to work closely with government, industry and civil society to overcome some entrenched socio-economic challenges and realise its full potential as the country’s youngest city – something its levelling up strategy acknowledges.
For a city that can trace its radical heritage of improving the physical environment, public services and people’s prospects and living standards back to the ‘civic gospel’ and leadership of Joseph Chamberlain, there is a past to draw from and a future to build into.
So in our fringe debate we want to ask what the future for a Levelled Up Birmingham could mean regionally and nationally, and how the city’s journey to place-based levelling up can be adopted by other urban areas.
So through this prism, in our fringe debate we want to ask what are the prospects for:
• How can Birmingham make the most of the huge synergies between government’s stated objectives and levelling up missions with its own strategy and vision?
• What are the best routes for to investing in and developing the transport, digital and green infrastructure as well as the skills and innovation programmes to boost Birmingham’s productivity to close the gap with London and the South East?
• How can better community engagement, more responsive local public services and an enhanced and more vibrant realm provide the ingredients for sustained recovery and renewal in our neighbourhoods and localities?
Speakers will include
- Cllr Ian Ward, leader, Birmingham City Council
- Rebecca Riley, Associate Professor Enterprise, Engagement, and Impact, City-REDI, Birmingham Business School
- James Morris MP, Halesowen and Rowley Regis
- Cllr Izzi Seccombe, leader, Conservative LGA Group
- Professor Colin Copus, Visiting Fellow, Localis
Please register via Eventbrite
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What does Global Britain mean for local growth? The Thames Estuary Growth Board and the launch of the Global Estuaries Network
Monday 3rd October from 10.30 to 11.30
Synopsis: How can local growth be released through international partnerships and the opportunity presented by the UK’s first state-level trade deal?
The UK’s cities, counties and towns have long forged links with international partners, recognising the value of developing new business, education and cultural ties – but few have realised the full economic potential of these relationships.
An internationally focussed Britain following Brexit; the Government’s Integrated Review 2021; and a growing global movement for “subnational diplomacy” – linking trading regions across the world – now combine to raise old questions in fresh ways:
- What does Global Britain mean for localities and levelling up?
- How can local economic potential be released through global partnerships?
- How best can existing private, public and civic networks in a locality add value to these efforts?
- What does UK trade policy and the first “state level” trade deal in the US brokered with Indiana – opening the door to businesses looking to export or invest – mean for UK localities?
- How can the Arcadis Global Estuaries Network deliver for the Thames and other UK Estuaries?
By placing these international relationships at the forefront of local economic strategy as in the Thames Estuary, local areas can open new opportunities to drive investment and growth.
Speakers will include:
- Kate Willard OBE, Thames Estuary Envoy
- Paul Scully MP, Minister for London, Minister for Local Government
- Francis Davis – Professor of Leadership Roehampton Business School, Professorial Fellow University of Oxford
- Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt MP, Leader of the House of Commons (invited)
- Kelly Tolhurst MP, Minister of State, Department for Education (invited)
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The Connected Society – realising pride in place
Monday 3rd October from 12.00 p.m. to 1.00 p.m.
Synopsis: How can new approaches to community engagement that build on pride in place lead to better local services, vibrant high streets and civic renewal?
Taking back control was always meant to mean more than just transferring power from Brussels to Whitehall. Delivering the promise was meant to mean placing empowered communities at the country’s constitutional core. Localism has the potential to deliver real democratic accountability, but only if done in a way that delivers real power to people.
To develop deeper connections between the local state and citizens is not necessarily a matter of institutional formality. It is a question of substance and concerns the relations between the functions of a local authority – such as the services provided – and the citizens they are responsible for.
Neither the local state nor civil society and community should be seen as acting in isolation. Local authorities derive their legitimacy through their interaction with citizens and an organised and active civil society. Furthermore, a capable local authority can use these interactions to assess the needs of citizens that can then go on to inform technical or policy solutions that deliver better and more responsive public services, and create an improved public realm and local environment.
How citizens and communities identify with their local area is notoriously tricky to grasp. In the immediate policy context, the government’s Levelling Up White Paper has used the rhetoric of ‘pride in place’ – a helpful springboard.
To further understand local identity and pride in place better, and how this impacts local high streets and neighbourhoods, our fringe panel event will ask how a strong sense of local and civic identity can build pride in place.
So through this prism, in our fringe debate we want to ask:
- How have our local authorities and their communities and civic groups adapted and learned from the immediate context of the pandemic and recovery to engage responsively, innovatively, and humanely to meet the needs of people?
- Can better community engagement, more responsive local public services and an enhanced and more vibrant realm provide the ingredients for sustained recovery and renewal in our neighbourhoods and localities?
Speakers will include:
- Cllr Elizabeth Campbell, leader, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
- Cllr James Jamieson, chairman, Local Government Association
- Danny Kruger MP for Devizes
- Mark Robinson, chair, High Streets Taskforce
- David Simmonds MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner
- Ailbhe McNabola, Director of Policy and Communications, Power to Change
Chair: Jonathan Werran, chief executive, Localis
Please register via Eventbrite
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