NEWS & EXPERT COMMENTARY
Stay up to date with the latest developments, insights, and opinion pieces from The Centre for the New Midlands. Our news and commentary section offers thoughtful perspectives on key regional issues, as well as updates on our work and impact.
The reaction to the government’s Your First Home scheme has been decidedly lukewarm. Having initially welcomed the prospect of a successor to Help to Buy, housebuilders and investors were underwhelmed by the details eventually revealed in last week’s Budget. The FTSE 350...
A project team finds a way to simplify a design, shorten construction and save money. It sounds like an outcome everyone should welcome.
Commercially, the picture is less straightforward. The designer faces additional work. A specialist loses part of its package. The contractor...
While there has been much commentary on what last week’s budget tells us about the government’s general direction of travel and commitment to ending forty years of neoliberal consensus, the impact on housing and the development of communities we all live in has been less...
Local authorities across the country are exploring ways to improve their cash position by transferring assets to community-based organisations. Taking this approach, they can retain ownership of them, whilst offloading the costs associated with their upkeep and maintenance....
In organisations large and small, when given an opportunity to engage with their local communities, people will sometimes say, ‘we would love to do that, but we don’t have the budget’. I always find that an interesting observation as the budget I have is called goodwill....
As the Chancellor prepares for the Autumn Budget, one reality is unavoidable: Britain needs jobs and growth. The alternatives of higher borrowing and further tax rises are no longer sustainable. Elevated interest rates make borrowing prohibitively expensive, while increased...
The new homes market has been in decline for the last three to four years with little or no rise in house prices, whilst materials and labour costs have increased and additional costs have been introduced through higher building standards, Biodiversity Net Gain and the latest,...
The West Midlands Combined Authority Theory of Growth identifies business leadership and management as a distinctive regional challenge and links management quality with the region’s productivity gap. The evidence it gathers is striking. The wider region has the lowest business...
“I would simply grow the economy”, said many a political leader since the 2008 crisis rocked our world. But why? And more importantly, how?
‘Why’ is straightforward. The West Midlands has punched below its economic weight for half a century, first as heavy industry declined...
Social housing is infrastructure in all but name. The homes commissioned under the arrangements now being drawn up will stand and shelter families long after the ministers and mayors who announced them have left office. The landlords who own them cannot easily walk away...
I grew up in the Black Country; I went to school here and, as a teenager, like many of my friends I had my first job here working evenings and weekends in a corner shop. My brother lived the same experience – getting a start in life by working part-time at a clothes shop....
There is a quiet asymmetry at the heart of how affordable housing gets built in this country, and the Future Homes Standard (FHS), for all its ambition, has yet to reckon with it. A housebuilder’s obligations effectively end at practical completion. A Registered Provider’s...
A vacant corner plot, a redundant garage court, an awkward gap in a street. These places rarely dominate the housing debate, but I believe they deserve a more deliberate role in how we think about the Midlands’ future.
Their potential begins with providing additional homes....
Across the West Midlands, we know that rough sleeping is one of the clearest and most painful signs that something has gone wrong long before someone reaches a doorway, a tent or a car park. It is visible, urgent and unacceptable. But it is also complex.
As chair of the...
Labour’s Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, and the Mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker, have announced new plans to bring the West Midlands’ bus network under public control. On Monday, the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) approved the acquisition of National...
The business landscape in the West Midlands, and more widely across the UK continues to evolve rapidly as organisations respond to economic pressures, technology trends and new innovations. In the current climate, the organisations that will thrive over the next decade won’t...
Today is A-Level Results Day.
For thousands of young people across the country, this morning will bring celebration, relief, perhaps disappointment and, for many, the first big decision about what comes next.
Some will head to university. Others will start apprenticeships,...
“Talent is everywhere. Opportunity isn’t.”
It’s a phrase I return to often because it captures a major challenge facing young people today.
We do not lack talent, potential or ambition. We lack enough routes for that talent to be seen, developed and given a fair chance...
At a time when the former Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has just got the biggest promotion of his life, we were privileged to hear from Sir Andy Street, another former Mayor, at the Centre for the New Midlands about his thoughts on what getting the top seat...
In the last few months, a set of national and regional reports and announcements have highlighted the challenges and opportunities relating to employability and skills within the West Midlands.
Ours is a region of extraordinary potential. It has the youngest population of...
In one of the final sessions of CFP26, this discussion explored one of the UK’s biggest economic challenges: how regional governments can secure the long-term funding and financial powers needed to drive sustainable growth. Bringing together perspectives from local...