A new report suggests the UK cities should look to Europe for ways to support investment and economic development.

Growth cities: local investment for national prosperity, commissioned by Regional Cities East, a group of cities in the East of England, shows how diversified economies, greater localism, integrated and better infrastructure are the keys to success for a range of European cities. Based on these experiences the report recommends a number of policy shifts to help growth focused cities in the UK catch up. These are:

Enhanced Local Enterprise Partnerships
Localisation of Business Rates
New public/private models for investment such as Infrastructure Bonds
Skills academies to raise the capacity of people to deliver quality growth;
Local development agencies with the mix of skills to get development going on the ground;
Quality charters to ensure the quality in developments that neighbourhoods need;

The report, authored by Dr Nicholas Falk of the Urban and Economic Development Forum (URBED), draws on the experience of cities in Europe that have led regional

development. These include Amersfoort in the Netherlands, Copenhagen in Denmark and its sister city of Malmo in Sweden, Freiburg in the South West of Germany, and Montpellier in France.

Dr Falk argues that these locations enjoy high levels of investment in sustainable infrastructure, put together at the local rather than the national levels, benefiting from fiscal and policy freedoms unavailable to UK local authorities. He calls on the Government to give local authorities more tools to raise long term loans for sustainable urban extensions and developments.

He said: “As the real economy has eroded, common wealth and heritage matter even more. Wealth creation and innovation are closely linked and connectivity helps explain differences in wealth creation as it draws clusters of creative people together. Many of the medium sized towns in the arcs around London are over-shadowed by the dominance of the City of London, and are not doing as well as they could.
“Major imbalances have included the supply of new housing, skills, private sector jobs, integrated transport and connected places, but above all as living places and sustainable neighbourhoods. Our report addresses the issues of rebalancing our economy and restructuring our urban conurbations at a time of financial cutbacks and the scrapping of the old regional planning machinery and calls for major investment in infrastructure to overcome the barriers to sustainable development.