A New Era for Towns?

Posted on 14 September, 2017 by Fiona

Peter Hetherington chaired the joint Carnegie UK Trust and Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal event in North Shields on 11 July 2017, the discussions of which are summarised below. Peter is past chair of the TCPA, was a member of the government’s urban sounding board and a board member of the former Academy for Sustainable Communities. He is also a former regional affairs editor of The Guardian.

I grew up, and started work, in a smallish city. It was surrounded by a clutch of even smaller towns. What’s surprising is that, throughout my formative years – the 1960s into the early 70s – they were (in the case of the city) largely self-governing, a ‘county borough’ in the officialise of the time.

Throughout over half of the last century, a small city was a big democratic player – for a period providing electricity, gas, water, public transport and, of course, education and social care. These institutions civilised Britain long before a national government developed any social agenda. And that went for small towns too. Just look around England, Scotland and Wales and you’ll still see remnants of truly local democracy: town halls, often sadly neglected and partly abandoned, that once provided a focus of local action and service delivery. Think royal burghs (in the case of Scotland) and town councils in England (which still sometimes exist as glorified parish councils).

But from the 1970s onwards, through rounds of local government ‘reorganisation’, these small councils were swallowed up by larger authorities. Local identity – that essential element of pride, belonging, a sense of place – went out of the stained glass windows which sometimes adorned these fine sandstone buildings. As countless citizens will attest – me included – bigger hasn’t always been better.

So what to do? If we can’t turn back the clock, we can at least – as Carnegie UK Trust’s ‘Time for Towns’ project emphasises – consider how towns might have a greater say over decision making as part of a continuing policy debate surrounding community empowerment and ‘devolution’. In English terms, that latter noun briefly meant devolving some power to five ‘city regions’, such as Greater Manchester, in mayoral elections earlier this year. The initiative was meant to be rolled out elsewhere. But it’s stalled. The government seems to have gone cool on the idea.

In its limited form, however, this initiative did tell us something about a national policy mindset which sees big cities, and surrounding conurbations, as the drivers of a regional economy – in much the same way as London is seen as a motor of the national economy.

It’s time to challenge these assumptions. As Carnegie UK Trust’s recent ‘Turnaround Towns’ report emphasises, millions of us don’t live in big cities but, rather, in small and medium-sized towns – some thriving, some coasting, many struggling.

I was lucky enough to chair a joint Carnegie UK Trust and Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal seminar in North Shields in July designed to address the turnaround issue, with case studies from eight places: the USA to Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Finland.

North Shields? Still partly a fishing port, it’s at the mouth of the River Tyne, and now – courtesy of local government reorganisation in 1973 – forms part of the North Tyneside metropolitan borough, which also embraces the neighbouring coastal towns of Tynemouth and Whitley Bay. North Tyneside, in many ways, is typical of much of Britain: poverty and plenty cheek-by-jowl. North Shields, perhaps seen as a poor economic relation, has a spectacular quayside, trendy bars, up-market flats and a poorer housing estate which has had its troubles in the past.

The mayor of North Tyneside, Norma Redfern, a retired primary head teacher, who opened the event, spoke passionately about the importance of community, belonging and partnership in the quest of ‘turning towns around’. Above all, she said, councils must put residents first. This was no synthetic comment. As the only elected executive mayor in the Tyne and Wear conurbation, she heads an excellent authority which boasts high-ranking schools and considerable ambition, often directed to turning round its most challenging areas.

As the past chair of the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), Britain’s oldest housing and planning charity, I am helping lead a project which specifically addresses those forgotten parts of England – for instance, former industrial towns and villages – which time, and government, seems to have forgotten.

In England particularly, there’s a policy vacuum, an asymmetric system which places, and sometimes rewards, big cities and conurbations, while forgetting outlying areas which contain the bulk of the country’s population. The tide has to turn. Let’s cooperate in driving forward a common agenda. A new era for towns? Why not?

Peter Hetherington

Reposted with kind permission from Carnegie UK Trust

Rural proofing: magic bullet or rural vote-catcher?

Posted on 24 March, 2017 by Fiona

We all know that living in the countryside may mean having to travel further to access shops, schools, GP surgeries and hospitals, while some services available in urban areas are simply unobtainable. Communities may complain that they are overlooked and individuals sometimes feel isolated. Rural proofing is intended to address these kinds of inequalities but is it really the magic bullet that will solve everyone’s problems?

The UK Government defines the process thus: “Rural proofing is integral to the policy making cycle. It requires us to make sure that the needs and interests of rural people, communities and businesses in England are properly considered. This applies to the development and implementation of all policies and programmes. For central government, rural proofing means assessing policy options to be sure we get the fairest solutions in rural areas.”

What could be better or more desirable than ensuring fairness all round when you are designing policies? But like most things in life, the reality is much more complicated. The questions we should be asking seem simple: what is rural, who is disadvantaged and what are the problems policies need to address? Unfortunately this is seldom the starting point for policymaking.

In my career as a social scientist working in rural studies I have spent a lot of time looking at the ways in which governments try to design and implement policies that are “fair” to both urban and rural communities. It is a challenge that faces governments worldwide and rural proofing seems to offer a useful tool. But too easily it becomes an all-purpose mallet to be applied without precision across cultures and circumstances. In some instances it seems to miss the mark completely.

In 2015 I was able to spend a month in Monash University in Melbourne to do research on rural proofing there and to have discussions and to provide a briefing paper and presentations about it for policy makers. I quickly realised that their thinking about “rural” focused on what the Australians refer to as “the country”. It is a term that has a pleasant old world sound to it, a nod to European roots. But it fails to take into account the truly remote outback which is home to indigenous Australians or to consider the very real disadvantages they experience. In Australia – as in the UK – how you define “rural” is highly politicised.

Rural proofing as a concept originated with the English Rural White Paper in 2000. My colleagues here in the Centre for Rural Economy have long been concerned with rural proofing, and Jane Atterton wrote in 2008 that the concept needed to be reviewed. Since then more critical questions have been asked, by the House of Commons in 2009 and the OECD in 2011. It is an English concept, and applying it more widely is always destined to be problematic. But even in England such a blanket approach often feels inappropriate. In a recent Lords debate Lord Beith (formerly an MP for a rural constituency himself) argued in favour of rural proofing and observed “Surely we cannot allow ourselves to stumble into a situation where you have to be well off to live in the countryside”. Given the discrepancy between house prices in city and countryside, living in a rural area in England is already well beyond the pockets of many people. Indeed, England is an anomaly in having a countryside that represents aspiration more often than it does deprivation. Of course you will find some disadvantaged communities and individuals there, but can rural proofing address such specific needs? Can it truly ensure that elusive “fairness”?

Scotland has always been more wary of rural proofing, arguing for a much more targeted approach via its Highland and Islands Council. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, is currently developing a guidance framework for rural proofing, very much following the English model, but related to its own Rural Needs Act. In work I am carrying out with colleagues at the Northern Ireland Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, we have highlighted concerns that such a blanket approach could result in unrealistic wish lists, regardless of practical and resource constraints. Providing “equitable” services cannot mean providing the same services in town and country. A small rural school or health provider may be popular locally but provide a poor service when measured against what is available in urban areas. If this is the case, local facilities should not automatically be protected via rural proofing, rather than being amalgamated in order to achieve improved services.

Rural areas are different from towns and cities and the needs of their residents are often different. But relying on rural proofing to address every rural problem will not ensure fairness. All too often it is a process implemented as a rural vote-catcher by governments as they approach election time. A more useful strategy would be to identify specific problems then design the policy to address those. If you do not know what needs fixing, how can you target an effective solution?

Sally Shortall is the Duke of Northumberland Professor of Rural Economy, in Newcastle University’s Centre for Rural Economy

21st Century Rural Development – learning from Scotland

Posted on 16 November, 2016 by Fiona

Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE’s Closing Keynote Speech at Scottish Rural Parliament 2016

What does successful, community-led rural development look like in the globalised, networked world of the 21^st Century? This question faces rural communities and governments I meet around the world and I often respond with the suggestion that they look to learn from Scotland.

In the 1960s, in the early days of the Highlands & Islands Development Board (HIDB), the model of growth centres was in vogue – an aluminium smelter here, a pulp mill or a nuclear power station there, all part of a plan devised and imposed top-down. The strategy failed, largely because control lay far away, with too little input from those who lived in and knew these areas. Later, as a reaction to such failures, this was superseded in many countries by a model of “bottom-up” rural development (development from within), based on local assets, local knowledge and local action. The EU LEADER programme was seen as emblematic of such an approach, and this was more successful. However there were a number of issues even with the “bottom-up” approach.

One issue was that it proved hard to find examples of truly bottom-up development: usually initiatives, even if locally led, relied on external funding or networks. LEADER areas and groups, for example, were selected and approved by governments and disbursed EU funding according to EU budgetary rules and strategies in Brussels-approved business plans. Moreover they learned from one another through national and transnational networks, sharing external ideas and know-how.

Another problem was that inequality was built in, and in two respects. Localities whose capacity to act was greater, or where capacity had been built through earlier interventions, were better able to mobilise and capture further funding leading to a very uneven geography of development. And within localities it tended to be those already with capital and power who captured the lion’s share of the available funding – especially when these were in the form of capital grants. Then, as the world moved into an era of neoliberalism and rolling back of the state, it was all too easy for bottom-up development models to become ‘self-help’ remedies which allowed the state to withdraw.

Taking these issues on board, and also reflecting the transition to the ‘network society’ of the 21^st Century, a more helpful model is now that of “networked rural development.” In this approach, place-based strategies are led by local people but are acknowledged to involve external partners too. Moreover this approach draws not only on local assets and local knowledge but also makes use of external assets and knowledge to augment what is available locally. Most notably this recognises the necessary contribution of an enabling state (rather than an absent state leaving it to self-help), as well as the contributions of links with other rural communities, activists and researchers.

Scotland already exemplifies this approach. Take community land ownership, as one example, led and controlled by local communities of place, but helped and enabled by the state through land reform legislation, a community land fund and the community land unit, as well as activists and supporters with useful skills and contacts, and of course the mutual support and shared learning now offered through Community Land Scotland.

The Scottish Rural Parliament also exemplifies this approach. The idea came through learning from the experience of other countries (notably Sweden), facilitated by externally-funded studies and disseminated through various networks. Now the SRP functions at one level as a means for the people of rural Scotland to collectively articulate and present their manifesto to government and other authorities, calling for the state to play its part in enabling a better future for all parts of rural Scotland. At the same time, the SRP is a network for sharing and celebrating ideas and experience, which local people can then take back to their own communities to consider and to weave into their own strategies and actions.

Around the world many people in rural areas are interested in these ideas and Scottish experiences of networked rural development, and they draw strength and inspiration from them. But this is more than bottom-up rural development or self-help. A successful approach requires an enabling state, not an absent state leaving each community to sink or swim in a neoliberal world which would inevitably lead to widening inequalities and a two-speed countryside. Scotland is fortunate in having had successive governments which recognise that they must play their part. In addition this approach requires rural communities to think not only of the assets and knowledge within their locality and of building their capacity to mobilise for action; they must also consider their network resources, and how these can be used to draw in assets and knowledge from elsewhere and from one another as they seek to thrive in the networked world on the 21^st Century.

These lessons are especially important during the turbulent times ahead. In fashioning future rural policies outside the EU, both farming interests and environmental interests have powerful and effective lobbying capabilities which could easily crowd out rural development and rural community interests – along with many of the elements of the rural manifesto just agreed by the Scottish Rural Parliament. It is vital that the rural communities’ voices are also heard and that post-Brexit policies are informed by these lessons from Scottish experiences of rural development.

Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE is Director of the Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal. He was formerly Co-Director of the Arkleton Centre for Rural Development Research at Aberdeen University. The ideas in this blog are elaborated in his report for the Carnegie UK Trust, Future Directions in Rural Development. http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/publications/future-directions-in-rural-development-full-report/

You can also watch a video recording of Mark’s speech at the Scottish Rural Parliament.

The future of rural Europe?

Posted on 12 November, 2015 by Fiona

Have you ever wanted to be a Member of Parliament: no, me neither! But last week I participated in the second European Rural Parliament, in Schärding, Austria, as one of five delegates from rural England. This was very different to how we usually imagine a Parliament. At its heart is intended to be the voice of rural people, asserting the need for partnership between civil society and governments in addressing the big societal challenges. This innovative, and inspiring, process may be of interest for social movements and social renewal in many spheres – not just the rural.

The idea originated in the Nordic countries, and the Swedish experience in particular caught the imagination of other countries, initially Estonia and Hungary and then many more who now hold rural parliaments – from Scotland, Netherlands and USA to Lithuania, Slovenia and Cyprus. This European Rural Parliament was held under the auspices of the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, and co-funded by the European Commission through the Europe for Citizens programme. It was jointly initiated by three pan-European rural networks, ERCA, PREPAE and ELARD.

This European Rural Parliament process began with national campaigns in 36 European countries, with each campaign focused on organising an “upward cascade of ideas” which “truly draws upon the hopes and concerns of rural people”. These campaigns varied greatly in depth and detail, according to the national context: for example, Scotland relayed the main conclusions from last year’s Scottish Rural Parliament, while Portugal’s national rural network Minha Terra organised more than 170 local or regional events with nearly 4000 participants. These ideas from the grassroots were synthesised at national level, for use in national campaigning, and then at European level last week, leading to the agreement and affirmation of a European Rural Manifesto. The 250 delegates to the European Rural Parliament from all the countries involved in the cascade of ideas drew on the contents of the national reports during two intensive days of workshops and plenary meetings, distilling their contents and then debating line by line, finalising and adopting the European Rural Manifesto. We also endorsed the broad contents of a book “All Europe Shall Live – the voice of rural people”, which synthesises the national reports and draws out the main issues.

The generous spirit in which all these discussions and debates took place was impressive and inspiring, reflecting but also generating mutual respect, energy and enthusiasm. The process reflected the diversity of rural Europe but also asserted common values and a shared vision. The Manifesto calls upon the EU and national governments for full recognition of the right of rural communities to a quality of life, standard of living and voice equal to that of urban populations.

“Our vision for the future of rural Europe is of vibrant, inclusive and sustainable rural communities, supported by diversified rural economies and by effective stewardship of high-quality environment and cultural heritage. We believe that rural communities, modelled on that vision, can be major long-term contributors to a prosperous, peaceful, just and equitable Europe, and to a sustainable global society. The pursuit of our vision demands in every country a refreshed and equitable partnership between people and governments. We, the rural people and organisations, know that we have a responsibility to give leadership and to act towards our own collective well-being. But we also fairly demand that governments at all levels, including the European institutions, work to make this crucial partnership effective.”

The Manifesto goes on to address the social, economic, political and environmental challenges facing rural Europe while also emphasising the potential contribution rural areas and people can make to European and national as well as local and regional goals, if supported by governments and international institutions. Importantly it asserted the rights of people, whoever they are and wherever they live, and the shared responsibility of governments and civil society to promote human flourishing in rural and urban areas alike.

Both the Rural Manifesto and the report, All Europe Shall Live – the voice of rural people, can be found on the European Rural Parliament website, along with much more information.

Professor Mark Shucksmith, Director of Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal

The Census: why it matters

Posted on 20 August, 2015 by Fiona

The UK Census is a well-established national data gathering tool, which is then used for many different analyses, but there are some gaps in what it covers. Consultation is underway on the Census 2021. The closing date for responses to the Census Consultation is Thursday 27 August.

2021 Census director, Ian Cope, says: “Information based on census data is heavily used to improve decision-making by local and central government, the health and education sectors, businesses, and by community and voluntary bodies. Of course society changes in the 10 years between each census, so we’re asking you to tell us what information you will need in 2021.”

Newcastle University statistician, Tom King, explains the importance of the Census and why having your say in the topics which it surveys is vital to understanding who and what matters in society.

Census 2021: Consultation

Census has a particular importance in the public engagement with our society and how it is structured. It goes to very single household, and seeks to classify aspects of our society into groups. In this way, it can shape our understanding of our own society, and what is important to our society. In many ways it is the basis for societal planning for a whole decade, as it is the only source of detailed information.

For many groups, getting a question in the census to recognise their status is of profound importance. While what is measured gets done, when something is not measured it may not be known to exist at all. Census figures form the basis of all government activity, so any further information has to come from other sources, which only more specialised groups will access. This means the consultation for census topics is always hotly contested, and many more topics are proposed than can be surveyed.

Timeline for Consultation

It may seem strange that the census is running its consultation for topics to be surveyed in 2021 six years ahead of time. But this is because it is such a huge project, often being compared to a military campaign in its scale. It also follows a rigorous testing process, so that as well as typical questionnaire development, there is also a full scale census test run two years in advance to evaluate operational processes and new questions.

Census is different to other surveys in the UK, with a statutory requirement for householders to make a census return or face a fine. The questionnaire itself is approved by parliament, another stage in the long development process.

This is not necessarily a rubber stamp, with the question on religion being introduced by parliament at this stage.

This question is framed as optional, not a caveat the statisticians were allowed, but one which was repeated in 2011.

Background to the Census

When national censuses was originally conducted, typically beginning in the 19th century, they were the only systematic source of information on a country’s population. They relied on enumerators visiting every household on census day to record their details and this process continued into the 20th century due to popular illiteracy. Census has changed, with self-completion forms and by introducing usual or ‘de jure’ residence to replace the original ‘de facto’ qualification which caused many strange anomalies.

The statistical approach has also changed and the census sits within a portfolio of detailed surveys collected by the National Statistics Office. This reflects a need for more detailed information on some issues, such as crime, and the introduction of statistical sampling of households which required a register of addresses. There are also follow up surveys to test the coverage and accuracy of the data, trying to identify who may have been missed or misclassified.

Who is included in the Census?

It is confusing to many people to describe the problem of people being missing from the census. Certainly as the number missing (around 6%) is nowhere near the number of people fined. But at 94% census has a higher response rate than any other survey, and it is the only survey to capture some population groups, such as those living in large and secure communal establishments, and the homeless. Although the overall total is totemic, it is the local geographical detail which is important.

No other source of information tells us exactly how many people live in small areas with enough detail about them e.g. their age and sex, for this to be useful for demographic models. This is why the plans to shift to administrative data on which to base census enumeration are still in development. You may believe that the government knows everything about you but the fact is they don’t, and what they do know they don’t share, even for statistical purposes.

It is often pointed out that other countries have moved to an administrative system, but their data rely on population registers, and often unique ‘social security’ or similar numbers. Britain has none of these, and in fact the census goes out without assuming anything, admitting those who are irregular, or people who would prefer not to be the part of any system at all. More than that, we collect other information on the characteristics of our population, in a detail other countries envy.

These are the topics which are so hotly contested by societal groups, while the statisticians worry themselves much more about the missing people.

Government departments, and more local relations, are the source of many questions on economic activity and education, as well as the myriad questions on ethnicity. But it is the local people who see the consequences of what it is chosen to measure and how they are to be classified, and census can only take place by popular consent, as in the community exception to the human rights act.

At present, the framing of question about activity covers attending education, working and acting as a carer for someone. This excludes a large swathe of human activity, and discounts the activity of anyone who is retired, by recording no information on any voluntary role they may have. In the particular case of transport, this means that our only detailed transport data is around commuting patterns, because it is only main mode of travel to work which is queried.

Travel and Transport: An Example

Travel planning is aimed particularly at the stress on the transport network seen in the morning rush hour, when it is closest to capacity. But anyone who actually travels to work will have noticed the difference during school holidays which cannot entirely be due to commuters being away on holiday. Similarly, university towns will notice a difference in traffic patterns during the vacations, but this portion of commuting is not collected in the census, despite its obviously localised nature.

At the heart of the transport question is one of the main reasons for having a census which has yet to be addressed.

By linking two addresses, whether as main and second homes, or within country migration, or travel to work, we see data about the flow of people around our country. A survey cannot possibly achieve this due to the small numbers seen (hence the highly uncertain figures about migration) yet this tells us a lot about our society and how we are changing.

There are many specific topics close to many hearts for which the census is not the right source. But the census does form a direct intrusion of how our society is classified on each of us, which we should be in control of. By introducing doubt into the minds of victims of sexual assault, police were able to reduce the number of people who believed there had been a crime. Similarly, by not seeing something which is an important feature of our lives in the census questionnaire can diminish our confidence in its importance.

An example from my own experience, is the use of the travel to work data in public consultations on transport plans in Newcastle. It is widely reported that only 1.7% of people cycle in Newcastle as a reason not to accommodate cyclists in redevelopments and reallocation of the road space. But this figure is from the census and includes only those commuting by bicycle as the longest part of their journey to work: the framing is that those are the only people who matter.

Students, at school, college or university are not counted, neither are those who travel by bicycle only part of the way and it also does not consider anyone who was unemployed at that time. This is strange if there is a local school in the area where development is proposed, but is particularly flawed in the context of the money being spent. The Cycle City Ambition Fund required bids from local authorities, and all the awards were made to university towns, but there is no data on how students travel to university.

Conclusion

Not everyone is comfortable reasoning with statistics, and the census is compelling in that way as it can be viewed as a true figure rather than an estimate. Students who might like to dispute the prevalence of cycling and advocate for students for equal consideration might turn to look for data to support them, but there isn’t any.

Embracing the use of simple evidence from the census into discussions in public consultation requires the data collected to reflect our society, or those not measured will not count.

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Author: Tom King, is a statistician in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University. His research interests are public statistics and inference from longitudinal social data. Thus this incorporates communicating the relevance of social measurement, typically from large datasets. He is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

If you would like to contribute to a response to the Consultation from Institute for Social Renewal, please contact Fiona.Simmons@ncl.ac.uk

The North and Northness

Posted on 3 June, 2015 by Fiona

What creates a place? In May 2015, Newcastle University’s Cultural Significance of Place Research Group (CSoP) held an event exploring ideas of Northness in culture. The contributions ranged from reflections on the mythical, literary and musical construction of the North, to analyses of the modern romance of the North of England through the eyes of a Sunderland AFC fan. Across disciplines, the question was asked: who created our region? Whether they call up a lost past, or hint at a new political future, ideas of the North are as important today as ever.

Different ways to carve up the map

One of the most striking things to be learned from the various studies presented at this event is that there have been many different ways of conceiving of the geographical entity that is the North, whether that be a selection of four towns in England that aren’t London, or a transpennine dragon whose nose points towards St. Petersburg. When we see the geographical uncertainty involved in identifying this region, it helps us to understand the extent to which art and culture have been the agents in forming this space. In fact, as keynote speaker Professor Penny Fielding reminded us, this has had a long history, from the eighteenth-century conceptions of Northern democracy and social unity to nineteenth-century literature of the Industrial Revolution. As such, the associations of the North with these ideas are the product of centuries of story-telling.

North as opposed to South

The strength of Northern identity has by no means diminished, however, which is significant in an age of globalisation and technological advance. The explanation offered at ‘North and Northness’ was that the North has strengthened because it is increasingly defined against the South. In an analysis of Mackem linguistic purism, it was demonstrated that the North is often set against perceived Southern softness and femininity, in the context of a burgeoning capital city. Most starkly, however, North is conceived of as ‘home’ in the very tonality of North East folk:

‘The North Country Maid’ is bi-tonal, offering a sense of hope and joy in the chorus, which is in a different (major) key to the verse. Visit the North East Folk website for more examples from the Social Renewal funded project by Dr Simon McKerrell.

Where next for the North?

This is a pertinent question, given the debates surrounding devolution and decentralisation in the United Kingdom as a whole. Taking even the #takeuswithyouScotland trend as an example, the conversation is on-going. The political, legal and cultural future of the North is by no means certain, given how disastrous attempts to define it have been in the past. Evidence from the attempted artistic construction of the North in Artranspennine98, and from the current confusion over which cities in the UK deserve more devolved powers, suggests that it’s not so easy to make the North in your own image. The conclusion that must be drawn from the ‘North and Northness’ discussion is that although we can trace its construction, it’s a complicated task to re-mould it now.

Contributors to the North and Northness event:

Professor Penny Fielding, University of Edinburgh – Curating the North
Dr Simon McKerrell, Newcastle University – Musical Metaphors of the North
Derek James, University of Exeter – Can the concept of ‘northness’ be applied to tea smuggling in the eighteenth century?
Dr Michael Pearce, University of Sunderland – Anyone from the North East who says ‘mum’ should be shot
Dr Peter O’Brien, Newcastle University – Decentralisation and devolution in the UK: where next for the North of England?

For more information about the Cultural Significance of Place Research Group, please see their website or email Chris Whitehead.

By Fiona Simmons, NISR

Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal

We are the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal, Newcastle University

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The North and Northness