Last month, after nearly 30 years, we took South Yorkshire’s Supertram back under public control.

Over the first month of public control:

💥 Revenue is up 17%

💥 Fare evasion is down 95%

💥 Our new app has 10,000 registered users

The plan is working.

'The big talking point is public transport' 🚌🚄🚋

Andrew Carter spoke with Jane Haynes in our latest City Minutes podcast about the race for #MetroMayor of the West Midlands.

Listen now 👇🎧
loom.ly/INR-BDI

The latest Labour Force survey data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the UK is out and there are three exceptionally worrying statistics for #Wales

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 The lowest employment rate estimate in the UK was in Wales (69.1%) and the highest was in the South East (78.3%) for the three months ending…

IMO, we don't have a system that does this at the moment.

Things we need to do to improve the use of evidence in local economic policy making from our friends at Centre for Cities.

If we want more evidence to be used in local economic development, then we need to create incentives for central and local government that encourages and rewards the use of it.

There doesn't need to be a rivalrous relationship between towns and cities - more commuting will be part of the future for lots of the most deprived places.

Great to chat to Andrew Carter and Paul Swinney for the Centre for Cities podcast.

🎧NEW PODCAST |The UK’s towns tsar

Andrew Carter is joined by Adam Hawksbee Deputy-Director of
Onward and the Government’s Towns Czar to explore how we should be thinking about towns and if this should shape the work of Centre for Cities?

Listen now👇
loom.ly/F2MvLxs

Martin Wolf sets out a 4 part reform plan for the UK economy in Financial Times .

2B of his reform plan is 'substantial' city-region devolution which includes fiscal issues

ft.com/content/9b3eab…

“We are the masters now!” - my thoughts on how Labour should govern in Financial Times.

Starmer should use powers the Tories will leave behind on.ft.com/3UeKkes

🎧NEW PODCAST | Key races in the 2024 metro mayor elections

Andrew Carter is joined by Rob Parsons, Jane Haynes and Oliver Pridmore for insights into several of the candidates for the upcoming #MetroMayor elections.

Listen now 👇
loom.ly/INR-BDI

This is good and Labour should do it.

Buses are very good (rare) example of a policy that resonates on the doorstep and can have big strategic impacts (increase labour markets in areas = more economic activity).

But control will need to be accompanied by money.

Creative Arts Degrees - what should the government do? My free to read substack open.substack.com/pub/timleunig/…

'Instead of driving more innovation and growth, the bounty from today’s knowledge economy is instead diverted into rising land costs... The result is that working- and middle-class Americans are forced to devote ever-larger shares of their hard-earned money for shelter. The…

The time has come for anti-anti-Robert Moses thought: he did bad things, but was not personally and uniquely responsible for how cities transitioned to automobiles

And, to address the costs, we need to recover Robert Moses thinking applied to building housing, subways, etc

Important work this. Translated into British Housing Discourse, IZ refers to s106 affordable housing contributions. These are extremely understudied and undertheorised, but there is growing evidence that higher % 'affordable' requirements reduce supply and general affordability.

Agreed - should be changed back to the Supplementary Vote system

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LARGE LOCAL DIFFICULTIES: collapsing councils and the next Labour government

New piece in which I strain every sinew to get beyond the ever-deepening problems, and suggest some solutions

prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/65664…