The Connected Society - realising pride in place

The event, promoted jointly with Kensington and Chelsea Council, will take place between 12.00 p.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Monday 3 October at Birmingham Council House, Victoria Square, B1 1BB – a venue outside the security zone.

Taking back control was always meant to mean more than just transferring power from Brussels to Whitehall. Delivering the promise was meant to mean placing empowered communities at the country’s constitutional core. Localism has the potential to deliver real democratic accountability, but only if done in a way that delivers real power to people.

To develop deeper connections between the local state and citizens is not necessarily a matter of institutional formality. It is a question of substance and concerns the relations between the functions of a local authority – such as the services provided – and the citizens they are responsible for.

Neither the local state nor civil society and community should be seen as acting in isolation. Local authorities derive their legitimacy through their interaction with citizens and an organised and active civil society. Furthermore, a capable local authority can use these interactions to assess the needs of citizens that can then go on to inform technical or policy solutions that deliver better and more responsive public services, and create an improved public realm and local environment.

How citizens and communities identify with their local area is notoriously tricky to grasp. In the immediate policy context, the government’s Levelling Up White Paper has used the rhetoric of ‘pride in place’ – a helpful springboard.

To further understand local identity and pride in place better, and how this impacts local high streets and neighbourhoods, our fringe panel event will ask how a strong sense of local and civic identity can build pride in place.

So through this prism, in our fringe debate we want to ask:

• How have our local authorities and their communities and civic groups adapted and learned from the immediate context of the pandemic and recovery to engage responsively, innovatively, and humanely to meet the needs of people?
• Can better community engagement, more responsive local public services and an enhanced and more vibrant realm provide the ingredients for sustained recovery and renewal in our neighbourhoods and localities?

Speakers will include:

• Cllr Elizabeth Campbell, leader, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea• Cllr James Jamieson, chair, Local Government Association• Danny Kruger MP for Devizes• Mark Robinson, chair, High Streets Taskforce• David Simmonds MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner

Ailbhe McNabola, Director of Policy and Communications, Power to Change

Chair: Jonathan Werran, chief executive, Localis

In association with:

Host or Publisher Localis