Why London and the wider South East depend on each other With Centre for London’s Claire Harding, SPC Director Simon Eden looks at the relationship between London and the South East and how it’s changing. “A core driver of the relationship has been the policy decision to hold back London’s […]

We Are Island! Supporting and Developing the Isle of Wight’s Cultural Offer The Isle of Wight is home to a growing number of creative practitioners, many of whom have moved to the Island inspired by its natural beauty, its strong sense of community and the wealth of opportunities it offers. […]

Mayors are not for everywhere Andy Burnham’s outrage when he appeared to learn by text that Greater Manchester wouldn’t receive the same Covid-19 support as London gave England’s directly elected mayors a new profile. Burnham is better known for being mayor of Greater Manchester than he ever was as a […]

Levelling Up White Paper: a response from the central South In mid-March, the Southern Policy Centre held a webinar to discuss the Government’s Levelling Up and Devolution White Paper [1]with speakers from local councils, business and national think tanks. Here SPC Director John Denham reflects on some of the challenges […]

Starting Well: giving young people the best chance in life Introduction The University of Winchester and Southern Policy Centre have been working together to encourage what we believe is a timely and important debate about how we can secure a better life for all members of society. On 26th January […]

Re-imagining our city centres: one year on In November 2020 SPC and Blake Morgan launched a report exploring the future of our city centres. For some time now we have seen changes in retail driven by on-line shopping. That fuelled a policy debate about the future of the ‘High Street.’ […]

Levelling up and devolution: what might it mean for the central South ‘Levelling up’ – ensuring there is equality of opportunity across all parts of the United Kingdom – is a key theme for Boris Johnson’s Government. We are promised a White Paper in the autumn which will address regional […]

Deliberative Democracy: exploring fresh approaches to consultation Introduction Test Valley Borough Council led a Government-funded pilot to explore how a deliberative approach could inform decision-making on important local policy and service issues. Following that pilot the Council are keen to adopt that model for citizen engagement where it offers the […]

Recovery in the central South: an update, February 2021 Report of SPC’s seminar held on 26 February 2021 In June 2020, the Southern Policy Centre published Recovery in the central South: collaboration for growth. That report summarised the conclusions of a series of online consultations with key players from business, […]

Hancock’s Health Reforms – lessons from history When Matt Hancock announced that Integrated Care Systems would see ‘the NHS and local councils take decisions about local health together’ it rang a bell. A quick internet search and there it was, in the NHS Plan 2000: ‘For the first time, social services and […]

Final report from the Seminar and Workshop – 3 December 2020 In December 2020 Southern Policy Centre (SPC) and Nquiringminds (NQM) completed a 21-month project – Care Analytics. The project, supported by Innovate UK, explored how social care authorities can use Artificial Intelligence techniques and a wide range of data […]

Re-imagining Tomorrow’s City Centres: Report Launch “We can’t predict the future of cities, but we can invent them” Mike Batty, UCL Last week Blake Morgan and the Southern Policy Centre launched their research report exploring the future of the central South’s city centres. We were joined by Andrew Carter from […]

A Green Recovery: The opportunities ahead   In July 2020, Simon Eden published a paper on green recovery in collaboration with Green Halo and Future South. The introduction to this thought-provoking discussion is reproduced below while the full document can be accessed here. 2020. Not the year we expected it […]

Trauma and change: will we do things differently? In July 2020, Simon Eden published this blog in collaboration with Green Halo. In his book “The Language of Cities” Deyan Sudjic, Journalist and Director of London’s Design Museum, suggests that: “It takes trauma to make a complacent city invest in its […]

Making the most of devolution The Southern Policy Centre’s seminar ‘What does the central South want from devolution?’ drew in regional leaders from local government, business, and further and higher education. With a number of related media stories and government announcements since the seminar, it’s worth looking at how any […]

Recovery from Covid-19: 24 June 2020 As the nation emerges tentatively from lockdown there are many conversations about what recovery may look like: what may change, what have we learnt from months of enforced isolation and behavioural change? Newspapers are full of articles about our ‘new normal’, the BBC has […]

Recovery in the central South: collaboration for growth, seminar June 2020 Southern Policy Centre has been working with the public and private sector to identify the key issues facing the central South when lockdown is eased and we move into a new economic environment. This new policy paper, based on […]

Can Graduates fuel recovery in the central South? In a report published earlier this month the Resolution Foundation argued that one consequence of economic recession is the challenge those leaving full time education will face in finding jobs.[i] The ‘lockdown’ in response to the threat of the Covid-19 virus is […]