Cities Manifesto

Date: 18/09/2009

Our Cities Manifesto sets out our key policy recommendations for the next Government. We want to know what you think - and what your alternative ideas might be.

Join the debate at www.citiesmanifesto.org

Our recommendations

Elected Metro Mayors
Britain's biggest city-regions need elected ‘Metro Mayors' with real tax-and-spend powers. The first wave of Metro Mayors should be in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Leeds city-region and Greater Birmingham. Metro Mayors would energise millions of voters, be highly visible and accountable, and have a direct personal mandate to take tough decisions on local tax and spending.

Business rates should be raised and spent locally. Control over business rates should be handed back from central government to ‘Metro Mayors' and other cities, and used to invest in local infrastructure.

Transport
The next Government should introduce a national road-pricing scheme, to support investment in local transport. Transport budgets should be devolved to city-regions and given to Metro Mayors. Transport is not just about long-term big-ticket projects like Crossrail and High Speed 2. Cities also need to make smaller-scale but critical investments like relieving congestion on the Oxford Road approach into Manchester City Centre.

Skills
The next Government should cut back the thicket of national skills quangos and give cities more direct control over skills and training budgets. Many cities are held back by their workforces having too many people with low skills levels. In Liverpool and Birmingham, more than one in five people have no formal qualifications. Cities should be given more responsibility for skilling up their own workforce. Further Education colleges should be financially rewarded for getting people into work.

Housing
Britain's cities need more houses. Instead of pushing big national targets, the next Government should do more to incentivise cities to build more houses. For example, land auctions could be used to empower cities to free up local land for new housebuilding. Cities could reinvest the proceeds from planning gain in their local economies.

For further details or to comment on our proposals, join the debate at www.citiesmanifesto.org