Today, it has been announced that England's biggest cities will be able to bid for powers from central government to boost economic growth, after a series of amendmends to the Localism Bill received cross-party support in the House of Lords. This would pave the way for cities to have greater control over policy areas such as economic growth, housing and planning and regeneration. Cities would also be free to pool resources across functioning economic areas. It seems that cities will be able to bid for freedom to set their own distinctive policies and when they will come up with innovative proposals for doing things differently, the central government will devolve the powers cities need to implement them. Could this be the answer to a more successful and extensive decentralisation of urban energy systems? And how about smaller-scale cities and towns?
Catalina Turcu, UCL
14 September 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment