Spatial rescaling of economic planning the English way

Lee Pugalis; Alan R. Townsend

doi:10.2298/SPAT1227001P

Lee Pugalis Northumbria University, School of the Built and Natural Environment, Newcastle, UK
Alan R. Townsend University of Durham, Department of Geography, Durham, UK

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2298/SPAT1227001P

Keywords: spatial rescaling; sub-national development; economic planning; entrepreneurial governance and Local Enterprise Partnerships

Abstract

Across England, planning and governance modes of regulation of supra-local development strategies are undergoing important transformations. In particular, the UK's Coalition Government, which was has been in office since 2010, has a political and financial mission of rescaling and simplifying sub-national economic planning. As a consequence of the abandonment of regional apparatus, which can be understood almost as a 'scorched earth' approach, a strategic leadership fissure has arisen between national and local scales of policy. Analyzing the theory and processes of spatial rescaling, including the emergence of new geographies of governance at the sub-regional scale, the paper illustrates some of the key opportunities and dilemmas arising from these 'scalar shifts'. Drawing on the case of Local Enterprise Partnerships - which are supra-local non-statutory spatial governance entities - the paper questions whether these new public-private arrangements present a pragmatic way of resolving the strategic tensions between elected local authority areas that would otherwise be seriously ignored in England after regions. The paper examines whether state-led rescaling in effect provides a new 'cover' for some old politics.

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