The starting point for this book was the leaders’ summit we held in November, next to St James’ Park in London. The subject was regeneration and we covered every possible aspect, from communities to unicorns – from investment to policy on parks.
Our problem has been that, although this is one of our key chosen areas of policy, thinking in the UK has been moving so fast, that so much of the debate is on danger of going out of date. All the way to the recent publication of the government’s levelling up white paper in February.
For that reason – and although we have decided to use some of the keynote speeches verbatim – this is not a conventional conference report. It is first and foremost a collection of essays inspired by what people heard there.
I hope, therefore, that as you embark upon this booklet – whether you joined us for the summit or not – that you will use it as a way of looking at, and maybe taking part in, one of the most important debates about UK regeneration that has ever emerged.
Essays were inspired by the Leaders Summit and have been written by George Freeman MP, Stephen Kinnock MP, Claire Hazelgrove, Prof Stephen Smith, Tom Chance, Jayne Woodley, Gabriel Chanan, Tom Brake, Ashok Gupta, Biyi Oloko and Danny Kruger MP. Produced in partnership with TPXimpact.