Which LEP’s strategic economic plan is this commuter reading?
Most development economists and urbanists will, like me, have mourned the passing of Sir Peter Hall late last month. Sir Peter was always stimulating, often challenging and inspirational. I remember once using a particularly appropriate passage from his ‘Cities in Civilisation’ for my reading as a Local Authority Chief Executive in the Minster at Doncaster’s annual civic service. And I can genuinely say that it was my admiration of Sir Peter’s (and, to be fair, Tim Williams’) pieces for what was then ‘Regeneration and Renewal ‘ that motivated me to establish this blog.
It is interesting that Sir Peter’s last two pieces for Planning were about London – its domination of UKs globally-significant economic clusters; and the inexorable expansion of its ‘Central Business District’. Both of these factors suck a huge amount of talent and activity into London. ONS’s publication of its interactive commuting map on 25 July 2014, illustrates this well. Commuting has huge implications for both Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and local authorities (LA) – implications that many LEP local growth deals and LA local plans are struggling to deal with.
The ONS publication presents the Census 2011 origin and destination of employment data at a fine level of detail – including sex, age, mode of travel etc.. Despite being over three years old, referring to a snapshot in March 2011, and some of the interactivity working poorly, LEPs and LAs do need to consider the data carefully and turn it into ‘intelligence’, and thereafter policy.
On London, the data suggests around 800,000 workers commute from outside Greater London into the administrative area – comprising one in twenty five of England’s total job count. The commuting numbers range from nearly 26,000 residents of Epping Forest, to a presumably extremely tired six residents of Orkney Islands.
Twenty four LAs have more than 10,000 commuters into the capital. One would expect this on the immediate boundaries of the city. But this cohort includes major regional cities such as Chelmsford, Southend, Medway (none of whom abut the capital), as well as major large net employment centres in their own rights, like Basildon, Watford and Slough. Looking further afield, Brighton, Luton, Milton Keynes, Colchester amongst others are major cities in the 5000-10000 commuter range. Perhaps most surprising, five of the core cities have over 1000 commuters (from the administrative city alone – many more from their city regions) to London jobs.
The impact of London earnings on local prosperity is high. For the twenty five largest LAs in terms of London commuters, resident earnings exceed workplace based earnings significantly in all but the two ‘Heathrow’ LAs (Slough and Spelthorne). Of the ten LAs with the highest surplus of resident earnings over workplace earnings in England, six are in this group (and another four are London boroughs). St Albans, with the second highest Resident Earnings dividend in England (£328 – or over 60% of average national wages!) has over 50% of its residents in employment commuting outside the district, of whom 45% go to London.
The density of London commuters should have major implications for LEP strategic economic plans (SEP) – particularly for those LEPs in the Greater South East. For instance, 118,000 residents of the Hertfordshire LEP are estimated to commute into London – about one in five of the workforce. In terms of Hertfordshire’s (or indeed other LEPs) skills priorities, how far should these be considered in terms of London mega-region business demand rather than the local labour market? Should enterprise and business growth priorities be seeking to provide alternatives to commuting; and inward investment priorities to attract businesses out of the capital?
SEP challenges arising from ‘commuterism’ extend to LEPs (and certainly to some LAs in those LEPs) well beyond the traditional London mega-region. For instance commuting from the three LAs in the Cheshire & Warrington LEP into Greater Manchester far exceeds (by a factor of 2-3 times)any commuting amongst themselves (for Warrington and Cheshire East); and into Liverpool City Region for Chester and Cheshire West. Both Cheshire LAs have resident earnings at least 10% above workplace, and even Warrington has a 3% dividend. On a slightly different scale, it is a challenge for the LAs in South Lincolnshire that their commuting into ‘Greater Peterborough’ in Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough LEP far exceeds that into their Lincolnshire LEP neighbours.
None of this is to say that any of the LEPs are on the wrong boundaries, or that LAs should seek to change their current LEP membership. But it does suggest that SEPs and local growth deals need to think about how their plans and strategies deal with the propensity to commute. For instance, instead of seeking business growth in (copycat) high value national priority technologies and industries, would any LEP be bold enough to focus on strengthening quality of life and ‘lifestyle’ sectors in areas where people choose to make their home, but work in higher value employment in major commutable cities? And, the propensity of commuting does make substantive LA participation in neighbouring LEP deliberations – including dual membership – understandable, and even desirable.
The work/life balance issue inevitably comes to the fore in Local Plans balancing of places to live and work. The sorts of levels and distances of commuting evidenced by ONS makes it very difficult to plan local housing demand and supply accurately. The limited parameters and guidance on the application of the ‘duty to cooperate’ exacerbates the problem – especially with regards to London and its ‘world city’ mega-region.
We have had a relatively low key but increasing raft of concerns over the duty to cooperate between London and the multiple LAs of the former South East and East of England regions, and vice versa. This is surely set to increase further. The London Plan’s ambitious housing targets rely on an element of migration to neighbouring areas; and these migration pressures will inevitably rise if London’s challenging targets are not achieved.
In terms of London overspill, the current approach of most districts in terms of their ‘Statements of compliance with the duty to cooperate’ are both inconsistent and inadequate. Notwithstanding that these tens of Local Plans are each following differing timetables, the discharge of the duty has tended to be focused on a county basis, with no more than periodic ‘chats’ with London, and little (if any) substantive accords on housing and employment issues of strategic substance.
One wonders whether the incoming government next year, and any subsequent enhanced devolution to London will take on these issues. There surely needs to be some sort of strategic approach to ‘mega-city’ region housing and economic planning involving national government and sub-national authorities. And if this comes for London, it will inevitably then be considered for the ‘northern hub’ and perhaps the other (extended) core city regions.
In these forthcoming debates, it would have been wonderful to have had Sir Peter’s contribution. Sir Peter Hall – RIP – you shall be sorely missed.
