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All Episodes

LED Confidential — 133 episodes

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Title
1

What do MPs really want to know about devolution? LED talks to the House of Commons Library

2

Planned for or planned around? Mayoral Strategic Authorities and the rural development gap

3

Has Belfast cracked inclusive innovation?

4

Council borrowing controls: protecting taxpayers or constraining growth?

5

1 million young people outside the UK labour market: system failure or generational fault line?

6

When growth assumptions collide with population health: healthy life expectancy and local economic strategies

7

Tooling up the profession: what local economic development practitioners need now

8

Two‑speed devolution? What the Devolution and Community Empowerment Act really means for places

9

2026 local election results: democratic noise or delivery risk?

10

AI and the geography of opportunity: will it widen regional divides — and what should places do about it?

11

Building the plane while flying it: East Midlands Mayor Claire Ward on making devolution deliver

12

Has fiscal devolution finally gone mainstream in UK government?

13

Local Government Reorganisation and the capacity crunch

14

AI in the economic development professional's day job: tools, traps and human judgement

15

What does the "Green wave" mean for local economic development and placemaking?

16

Is energy now the organising principle for local economic development and placemaking?

17

Team Edinburgh: the growing role of business leadership in shaping modern local economic development

18

Making sense of England's new Local Growth Fund: regional strategy or tactical retreat?

19

Pride in Place extended - transformation or tactical top‑up?

20

English local government’s perfect storm: what it means for local economic development and placemaking

21

From rhetoric to regeneration: rebuilding England’s regional policy

22

The Hallett COVID‑19 Inquiry and local economic resilience

23

How England’s new Visitor Levy could reshape local growth, tourism and government finance

24

Greenland, geopolitics and local economic development - when global tensions reach local economies

25

Inclusive growth meets global trade: inside Scotland's Green Freeport model

26

Crystal ball for 2026: place, pride, and big bets on infrastructure

27

2025 in review: devolution, the Reform Party, and the future of local government

28

Innovation Districts 2.0: making growth inclusive

29

UK Budget 2025: is fiscal devolution finally here?

30

Can the Oxford-Cambridge corridor become Europe’s Silicon Valley?

31

Liquid assets: rethinking water’s role in economic development and placemaking

32

Rethinking post-16 education for local economies in England?

33

New Towns, new rules: reimagining growth for the 2030s?

34

Reorganising Local Government in England: 17 proposals, 56 councils -zero consensus?

35

Pride In Place Programme: promise or patchwork?

36

Total Place 2.0 and the politics of belonging

37

Is economic inactivity now the UK's biggest growth challenge?

38

Political instability, organisational churn, and the rise of hyper-localism—how LED practitioners are adapting in uncertain times

39

After the ministerial shake-up at MHCLG: what’s next for Local Economic Development in the UK?

40

Summer reflections: blue sky thinking for place leaders

41

Health meets place: the NHS 10-Year Plan and local economic development

42

Place before sectors? Rethinking UK industrial strategy with Paul Swinney

43

Infrastructure or illusion? Assessing the UK’s new 10-Year National Infrastructure Strategy

44

Happiness rankings: insightful or irrelevant for placemaking?

45

Feeding the future: rethinking local economies through the foundational lens

46

Water and place: threat, opportunity or both?

47

Spending Review 2025: A turning point for local economic development?

48

Joining the dots: universities, policy, and place-based impact with Sarah Chaytor

49

What does the rise of the Reform Party mean for economic development and placemaking in the UK?

50

What do the May 2025 local election results mean for English devolution?

51

Power cuts and cyber attacks - economic development in the age of perma-crisis

52

Can Innovation Districts and Knowledge Quarters deliver genuinely inclusive growth?

53

What can local leaders do when faced with a major site closure like British Steel?

54

Trump, tariffs, and local economic development

55

Transforming place-based growth with Mayoral Combined Authorities: insights from NECA CEO Henry Kippin

56

St Helena Airport: South Atlantic lessons for the UK's local economies

57

Does the UK's Plan for Neighbourhoods mark a change in policy direction or repackage the status quo?

58

How to be an effective place champion: lessons in tech-led economic development from Cambridge Ahead

59

How will a surge in defence spending affect local economic development in the UK?

60

Putting the ‘local’ in local government

61

Should your Local Growth Plan include an AI Growth Zone?

62

How can local government balance economic growth and environmental goals?

63

Decoding Rachel Reeves growth plan for local economic development in the UK

64

How to empower local communities through inclusive innovation and participatory democracy?

65

What's going wrong with the UK's economic and labour market statistics?

66

What next for fiscal devolution in the UK?

67

Is bigger always better for local government reorganisations?

68

Hopes and fears for UK local economic development in 2025

69

Creating ‘healthy’ local economies and communities

70

Will the Get Britain Working White Paper get your place working?

71

Facing the storm: Jack Shaw on England's Local Authority financial crisis

72

Should Mayoral Combined Authorities run public services?

73

Making the UK's Industrial Strategy work for places

74

What did Autumn Budget 2024 do for local economic development in the UK?

75

Spatial rebalancing with Henry Overman - Econ 101 for local growth

76

What now for the New Towns Taskforce?

77

Attracting SMR investments: lessons from South Yorkshire

78

Do local deal decisions reveal the UK Government's devolution approach?

79

The return of spatial strategic planning to England

80

Re-imagining local infrastructure delivery in the UK

81

What the English Devolution Bill means for local economic development across the UK

82

What you need to know about Local Growth Plans

83

Medellin's urban transformation miracle

84

What a change in government means for economic development in the UK

85

Putting universities in their place

86

UK General Election Special - 2024

87

How to fix the UK's high streets

88

What do rising economic inactivity rates mean for the UK's local economies?

89

The case for revisiting local development strategies ahead of the UK General Election

90

What do local election results mean for economic development?

91

What does the evidence say about poverty in the UK?

92

What are Labour’s proposals for local economic development?

93

Will PAC's latest report fix Levelling Up funding?

94

The puzzles and priorities of place: in conversation with Professor Philip McCann

95

Will the UK Government’s Local Transport Fund announcements put the North and Midlands back on the fast track to growth?

96

Long-term plan for housing or a muddled hotchpotch?

97

Is ‘Total Place’ a concept whose time has finally come?

98

How to embed the UN Sustainable Development Goals into local economic strategies

99

If we were Chancellor for a day...LEDC’s Budget 2024

100

Cities Outlook 2024 and how to use think tank research better

101

What’s going on with the Public Works Loan Board?

102

Mayor Paul Dennett shares the 'Salford Way' of city transformation

103

2023 - the good, the bad, and the ugly from the year in local economic development

104

St Helena Uncovered: Insights on economic development and placemaking from the most remote community in the world

105

Autumn Statement 2023 and local economic development

106

Tom Forth - using innovations in data to better understand places

107

Business networks and local economic development

108

October 23: Levelling Up & Regeneration Act, the UK's latest National Infrastructure Assessment, and 4-Day Week Trials

109

What HS2 cuts, bus franchising, and Birmingham City Council's bankruptcy means for LED in the UK

110

What comes after Local Enterprise Partnerships?

111

Growth lessons from the Women's World Cup, Oppenheimer, and...chess tables?

112

England's devolution dilemmas: time to reboot?

113

Solving England's house building crisis, Gigafactory investments, and the Tony Blair Institute's agenda for a tech revolution

114

Rising inequality and the UK economic crisis: in dialogue with Professor Danny Dorling

115

UK Shared Prosperity Fund woes, inflation and the impact of relocations on civil service jobs and behaviours

116

From LED to CEO: Navigating the path to career success in local economic development

117

Local solutions to failing national policies? Local economic development in May 2023

118

From books to boom: the potential of universities to transform local economies

119

Power dynamics and partnership building: local economic development in April 2023

120

Designing successful economic zones. All about Investment Zones, Enterprise Zones, Opportunity Zones, Freeports...

121

What the UK's 2023 Spring Budget means for local economic development

122

Permacrisis...what permacrisis?

123

Missions, Local Government Finance, and Green Economy culture wars

124

London 2012 Olympics - the epic journey to transform a city

125

Jan 2023 - the month in UK economic development

126

Reviewing local economic development in 2022 - turning point or year to forget?

127

Can devolution save local economic development from a UK government in turmoil?

128

Where next for local economic development under new UK PM Liz Truss?

129

Does the design of funding mechanisms like UKSPF influence economic development?

130

Is local economic development always about politics?

131

What makes a great economic development organisation?

132

The story or the evidence? Which is more important to placemaking?

133

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