Today's news that elements of the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill, as well as the Energy Security Bill, have been put to the sword and bundled up into a new, expanded ‘Growth Plan' has sent ripples throughout industry and government.
Combining energy, planning and levelling up into Truss's growth agenda poses one key question – will it be able to deliver enough to make a difference?
Last week, inflation once again hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, this time for putting a pause on the Government's ability to finance local regeneration initiatives – crucial to regional levelling up.
Soaring business costs have crippled the Conservatives' once proud flagship policy. It has failed to deliver even a fraction of the rejuvenation promised in some of the UK's most disaffected areas – with around half of the projects backed by the Government's £4.8bn fund no longer viable, according to the District Councils Network.
This was a disconcerting omen, so it came as no surprise that the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill became the Truss government's first victim in this morning's Mini-Budget.
Is Truss using the ‘Growth Plan' to dust levelling up under the carpet?
The absorption of levelling up and planning into Truss' one-size-fits-all growth agenda raises important questions. Levelling up was given little chance to deliver to the average person on the street, and hardly featured throughout the Conservative leadership race, however Johnson's former mantra maintained its popularity. In fact, a recent Onward poll showed that 81% of Conservative voters want levelling up to remain on the Government's agenda.
This begs the question: why has Truss packaged-up an already popular levelling up agenda, alongside energy security and planning, into a new and untested ‘Growth Plan'?
While we expected change to happen quickly under a new Conservative government, addressing the imbalances across the UK's towns and cities that levelling up planned to tackle, remains a national issue.
With the current cost of living crisis and talks of a recession, this makes it all the more important for Truss to focus on stimulating investment in our local communities and finding solutions to drive growth and empower people to breathe new life into their areas, instead of playing with policy optics.
Regardless of whether it happens under a wide-ranging growth agenda, it is crucial that the Prime Minister and her Cabinet get the new version of levelling up right from the get-go.
Delivering a digital Britain for the future
One way that Truss can deliver true transformation in all corners of the UK is the continued drive to create a digital Britain – one ready to face the future of work, planning and regeneration – and which matches the technological aspirations of the original Planning Bill.
Digitisation, whether through digital record keeping, the streamlining of online consultations and even the proliferation of digital twins in planning decisions, has always remained a cornerstone of the Government's agenda as it aims to drag the UK's archaic planning system into the 21st century to support much-needed housing, community facilities and public spaces. Therefore, it is a must for Truss and her deputies to continue with digitisation, including her recent appointees Simon Clarke and Lee Rowley at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
With the phrase ‘growth at all costs' now the hot topic in Cabinet circles and the announcements from today's ‘Mini-Budget', we can only hope this refreshed growth policy doesn't bite off more than it can chew. It needs to target funds in the right way to the right places to deliver tangible benefits and make a meaningful difference to people's lives, of which digitisation can play an important role.
The looming importance of the 2024 general election
One thing is for certain, Truss needs to ward off the danger facing her at the 2024 General Election. Levelling up was such a key part of Boris' victory in 2019, allowing him to snatch much of the red wall for the Conservative Party.
With a new face to levelling up, the economic crisis and the subsequent scaling back of regeneration projects, there's a lot at risk involved in the Prime Minister's policy realignment - not least losing the hard won, former Labour strongholds. However, the Growth Plan could still prove to be Truss' silver bullet – promoting an effective programme of devolution, smart-spending, and of course, growth.
If done correctly, a concerted policy push towards digitisation could be the foundation in which the Conservative government moves beyond levelling up into Truss's growth era. While digitisation is a component of levelling up, it too has much still to be delivered.
Under the new ‘Growth Plan', digitisation could deliver the change needed to help cut costs for government at all levels, as well as increasing the speed and transparency of decision-making, which would no doubt be a boon for a currently creaking planning system.
For now, however, the property technology or ‘Proptech' industry and indeed the UK, will have to bide its time and see what more details are revealed over the course of the coming weeks.
Jamie Holmes is CEO of VU.CITY
