From RDAs to LEPs: A new localism? Case examples of West Midlands and Yorkshire

G. Bentley, David Bailey, J. Shutt

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    91 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The new Coalition Government formed in May 2010 in the UK is to abolish
    Regional Development Agencies and, in the name of a ‘new localism’, is to replace
    them with Local Enterprise Partnerships, ‘joint local authority-business bodies
    brought forward by local authorities to promote local economic development’. This
    article looks at the proposals for LEPs, in the light of theories of governance. It
    explores the case examples of the West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside,
    where there have been differing proposals for region-wide LEPs. It argues that far
    from localism, the move to set up LEPs is profoundly ant-regionalist and is
    re-centralisation in disguise, given that many economic development functions are
    being taken back to Whitehall. That problem of recentralisation, we suggest, risks
    being exacerbated by a fragmentation of LEPs into small territorial units, and a lack of
    resources.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)535-557
    JournalLocal Economy
    Volume25
    Issue number7
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2010

    Bibliographical note

    The full text is not available from the repository.

    Keywords

    • regional development
    • UK
    • decentralisation
    • re-centralisation

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