What are the next big ideas emerging around local economies?
Cole emails to tell us:
“I’ve just returned from the USA, where contrary to popular belief, small independent stores really thrive. Walk down any busy street in America and you will see only a small fraction of chain shops and cafes compared to your typical UK street. The wealth and diversity of smaller shops/cafes/bars/restaurants is really quite remarkable and improves not only quality of life for consumers, but also of local workers.”
Excellent reminder that these issues are not only of "economic" in nature and susceptible to discourse, agenda setting and of course the way we measure success. What image would we have of the US and the UK and our localities if we knew how to measure what matters? Yesterdays news, but never redundant to look indicators of what a healthy economy (local or national) would actually look like: http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/entry/forget-gdp-how-is-our-economy-really-performing
Guardian contributor Some great, inspiring examples being put forward showing just a taste of the innovation going on around this all over the country, sadly going pretty much unreported. I was however very inspired recently to read the story of Crickhowell and their idea of mimicking the tax havens and loopholes used by larger businesses. It's a great challenge to the current model, and one that could be done in other places too. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crickhowell-welsh-town-moves-offshore-to-avoid-tax-on-local-business-a6728971.html
The issue of parking's come up, and there's no doubt that it skews consumers towards the retail parks and big chains - those who have cars, anyway. One thing that a few places are doing is to get bus routes working harder for their local economy. Greater Manchester is probably the best example of the city getting bus companies to link outlying areas to the town centre, extending routes and running times so that people can go where the jobs are - and potentially also where the shops and other opportunities are.
We're definitely yet to realise the potential of open data to support the growth of thriving local economies. One example of this, trying to keep it broader than shops, is in York, where they've opened up their data on childcare places. People have found smart ways to make this data useful for parents, and as a result there's now more uptake of childcare across the city - so definitely fewer vacancies and increased, more predictable income for local childminders and nurseries, and possibly also more mothers able to work the hours they want. There are a million other opportunities like that out there to help local economies work better.
The next big idea emerging around local economies, is happening behind the shop front: with suppliers, logistics and trading relationships. 'Supply chain co-operation', when parties in a supply chain work together. It is the only way we can create a fair system for both the producer and the consumer. Creating new clever ways to be the middleman just won't wash anymore!
There are also great examples of how new technology is being used to strengthen local economies. for example Change X (http://www.changex.org/) supports people to use tested and proven models of strengtening local economies . And new apps like Olio (http://www.olioex.com/) are helping people to tackl the massive issue of food waste (⅓ of all food is wasted in the UK) at a local level. At The Food Assembly, we are working with local communities and farmers across the UK to use new technology to trade directly with each other, to support the growing demand for local food (over 70% of UK want to buy local food)
Community shares are a really innovative idea for local economies to thrive. Raising investment through community shares is a great way to secure the right type of finance for your community venture. It might be for a local shop, pub, or football club. It might be to run a building for community use, or a sports ground or community energy scheme. Or it could be a local food grower, a children’s nursery, or a neighbourhood housing scheme.
Whatever the enterprise, the key element is that they are run by and for the community, and serve a wide range of social aims.
If you think they could be for you, try out our ‘Step-by-Step’ tool, which aims to help anyone contemplating the issuing of a community share offer, at any stage of development, from those investigating the idea for the very first time, to those who are on the verge of issuing an offer: http://stepbystep.communityshares.org.uk
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What are the policies or initiatives that are benefiting local economies and communities?
Many people can support their local community by using their buying power. There are many examples of co-operatives and community-owned businesses who have social objectives and by supporting these businesses you can support your own communities.
A good example is Benenden’s Community Shop (http://benendens.co.uk), which was financed by community shares. You can find loads of other community shops near you on our Community Shares Directory (http://communityshares.org.uk/directory).
If you are interested in finding out more about community shares, watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLouSzq5F_PSjZHhGMUd_xKJv5DXeajGy9&v=q6w-311GBIM).
Another great example is Unicorn Co-op Grocery (www.unicorn-grocery.coop), based in Manchester. Co-operatives are businesses that are owned and run by their members, whether local residents, employees or customers. They allow people to have an equal say in the business and share in its profits. Plus, they give people control over things that matter to them – their local area, their workplace and the businesses they use.
Back to food, it's about more than just buying. At Nesta, we've worked with quite a few different shared consumption models - from a community growing and food box scheme in Plymouth, to Casserole Club, which allows people to share a spare portion of their meal with a neighbour, or the Real Junk Food project which takes food that would go to waste from supermarkets for its social cafe.
There is a lot that the government could do to make it easier for local farmers and growers – for example:
Planning policy: they could protect and prioritise land for food production (rather than developers), and make it easier for farmers (planning permission for a home on the land or poly-tunnels etc.).
Procurement: at the moment procurement is lead very much by value for money – interpreted as cheapest. This means large wholesalers win contracts who don’t focus on the most sustainable produce paying farmers fairly. Smaller local suppliers can’t go for contracts as they can’t supply everything all year round. There are example of local authorities that have broken up contracts into smaller tenders so that local producers can become suppliers.
Guardian contributor In terms of Tom's question about what's out there that can help, I think there are some useful tools out there that perhaps at the moment we don't recognise as such. I am part of a community project here in Totnes called Atmos Totnes (www.atmostotnes.org) which is using a Community Right to Build Order process on an 8 acre former milk factory, but by designing a development on the actual needs this community has, and on a deep consultation, we are seeing the development as a huge opportunity to restimulate our local economy: through the construction process, through its being held in a Community Land Trust, starting and owning assets and businesses that can generate revenue for community development. I am a firm believer that communities owning assets is key to our ability to develop more resilient local economies. There is a lot of potential of Neighbourhood Planning too, if those creating them can be sufficiently bold, ambitious, and if they place local economies at the heart of them.
We hope that the government will continue to provide appropriate support for community shares and community ownership. We also hope the Government may consider how to encourage the further development of the community shares market by supporting potential investors through tax reliefs such as EIS, SEIS and SITR.
It would be great to see local businesses working with their communities and involving them as decision makers and stakeholders rather than purely as consumers.
Also, policymakers could share decision making with local communities, allowing them to more greatly influence how the local economy should be shaped.
On a larger-scale we could reconsider how we measure the health of the economy. Currently the focus is on growth – and all of the measures used by government (national, regional and local) are focused on growth, rather than whether the economy is delivering what it should, to improve the society in which we all live.
The economy is a means to an end, and looking at economics at the local level provides an opportunity for it to be led by those who have most to gain and lose - the people living and working in that particular community. The CED programme is testing this approach with 50 communities across England – www.mycommunity.org.uk/programme/community-economic-development.
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Are local economies just for rich people who can pay £5 for a loaf of sourdough bread?
One of our readers Colesla says she’d love to shop at little independent stores but can’t because of cost, poor quality, lack of flexible opening hours and poor accessibility and car parking. “So its not really a surprise that the vast majority of people shop in supermarkets. We don’t really have a choice.”
Guardian contributor That's an important point, although things like the Food Assembly, CSAs and other approaches are working hard to get around many of those things. Parking is a key point, one of the many ways in which the sheer size of large retailers completely skews the playing field in their favour.
It might seem so Tom, but that is because today economy is a topic for the rich, be it global or local. And that is not only down to who can play in the financial markets or afford the hippster sour-dough bread. It is also about awareness, ownership, participation... Just as Rob said, food is only the tip of the iceberg. The local energy he mentions would not mean much, if it was still owned by the big energy companies. Remember the days when worker and consumer cooperatives were a common topic on the street instead of a marginal phenomenon?
No, they don't have to be. I gave up supermarkets for a year and saved £2,000: https://t.co/X7kAUW4jFv #askGSB https://t.co/TQVCGdFofK
— Joanne O'Connell (@TheRetroVegan) November 11, 2015
It does often feel as though we're talking a bit too much about artisanal bakers and knitting boutiques - but local buying includes places like Donny Market in Doncaster, or Elephant Market in South London, where you have to try quite hard to spend £5 at all, let alone on a loaf of bread. I do think the focus on food is sometimes misleading too. If you're buying locally-generated energy, for example - or even generating it yourself - that's just as much a contribution to a thriving local economy.
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Can I support my local economy if I still like shopping at Tesco
Guardian contributor I think it's not a discussion that's about absolutes. What we can say is that at the moment, far too much money is spent through chains, and that 90% of that leaves our local economies when those businesses cash up at the end of the day. Shifting it back can have huge benefits. A 10% shift in our weekly shops towards local businesses would have great benefits for our economies, for our diets, for our high streets. At Transition Network we've measured this in detail in 5 places, and it means you can justifiably look at this approach as being a form of economic development. It's, if I may use the term, a 'transition'.
Great opening question Tom! They aren’t mutually exclusive but it is definitely more helpful to your local economy if you shop in local shops and markets. By shopping locally you can be sure that more money is staying within the local economy - evidence shows that for every £10 spent in an independent shop, £25 is generated for the local economy, compared to £14 spent in supermarkets. Shopping in local shops also supports the the creation of more jobs locally. For example, Queen's Road Market, in Newham, London, supports twice as many jobs per square metre than the average superstore.
I don't think they're mutually exclusive - as with a lot of this topic, it depends. Some supermarkets and other chains have relatively strong local buying and community support programmes - others don't. And the local economy is not just about local consumption, it's also about local employment. Lidl's recent announcement that they would pay the Living Wage to their staff represents a real boost to local economies. On the other hand, we all recognise the value of more mixed, non-standardised high streets, and that has to be part of a thriving local economy too.
Guardian contributor My point about Tesco is that if we present supporting local economies as just being about whether we buy all our food locally or not, we are missing the point. Very few people are in a position to buy all their food locally, so it's a matter of where they position themselves on the 0%-100% spectrum. We don't yet have enough infrastructure in place in many places for people who want to really go for it. We often assume vegetables are the key thing, but they are only about 20% of our diets. But the role of energy generation and of housebuilding, to be done in a completely different way to radically shift local economies is something very exciting I think. Then you have a different approach to how you marginalise large supermarkets.
Dan Jones, from Nesta, also reminds us it’s not all just about local shops and food:
“As well as energy and housing, I’d add transport and employment. In fact, if we really want to see thriving local economies, we probably also need to think about care, culture and recreation, and lots of other things that aren’t to do with shops at all.”
Others agreed:
Great point Daniel. We are really excited by the multitude of ways that communities are taking control and using community shares to finance projects that mean a lot to them. We have seen people investing in community shares projects in social care (Biddulph Youth and Community Zone - http://bit.ly/1lk6SqV), energy (MaidEnergy - http://bit.ly/1SIuhgV) and also rural community broadband (B4RN - b4rn.org.uk). That is what is great about community shares, they can be made to work for the community’s benefit.
Guardian contributor Hi Daniel. Caring is a key part of this. As Serco and others take over more and more of that sector, they are as much, if not more of a drain on local economies as supermarkets. Doing it differently could be hugely beneficial to local economies. Check out the story of the Evergreen Coops in Cleveland if you want some inspiration. Here in Totnes in Devon we have a project called 'Caring Town Totnes' that is about looking at care differently. More on that here https://cop21.transitionnetwork.org/caring-town-totnes/ Key to all this is joining stuff up, thinking more holistically, looking for connections, telling a story that weaves a new economy together.
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While we give our panel a chance to answer. This article about the impact of a major company - in this case Tesco - leaving a local community, is worth a read.
We’ve started this debate with a conundrum for our panel of experts. And probably one that a lot of us can associate with. Can I support my local economy if I still like shopping at Tesco, Sainsbury’s or Lidl? Are they mutually exclusive?
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Summary of the debate topic
We used to be a nation of shop keepers, now we’re a nation of shop busters as local shops, pubs, banks and Post Office branches disappear.
Yet, many argue, thriving local economies are vital to a strong national economy, providing employment and a strong sense of community. In contrast, supermarkets and chains have been shown less loyalty to local communities, profiting from them in times of plenty and abandoning them when the money’s not there.
It’s not all doom. A whole range of projects are emerging to strengthen our local economies, from city-wide laws in San Francisco controlling the spread of chain stores to the creation of local currencies and the establishment of new business models that connect consumers directly to producers and local retailers.
So where are our local economies heading next?
Join the discussion
Join a panel of experts on Wednesday 11 November between 1-2pm GMT to discuss local economies. Questions we will explore include:
- how best to support local economies
- the barriers to progress and how we can overcome them
- what more business and policymakers could be doing to build resilient local economies
- why thriving local economies matter and where they’re heading next
How to join
Make sure you’re a registered user of the Guardian and join us in the comments section below.
Submit a question
You can submit questions for the panel in advance using the form below or tweeting them to @GuardianSustBiz using #askGSB.
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The panel guests
Dan Jones, director, Innovation Lab, Nesta
Alice Wharton, programme manager, Community Shares Unit, Co-operatives UK
Rob Hopkins, co-founder, The Transition Network
Kathleen Cassidy, UK network manager, The Food Assembly
Leander Bindewald, researcher on complementary currencies, Institute for Leadership and Sustainability, University of Cumbria
Helen Woodcock, founding member, The Kindling Trust and Manchester Veg People
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One of our team is in the US visiting independant Co-ops at the moment - her reports are hughly inspiring. There are shopping malls run by co-ops and full of independent retailers. We can learn a lot from the US Co-op movement. Her reports can be found at: http://kindling.org.uk/blog