OPINIONS
Westminster City Council Chief Executive Charlie Parker argues that central government should show greater confidence in councils’ ability to run their own finances (18.08.14)
Eric Pickles – a petty dictator on green issues? Damian Carrington’s Guardian blog (01.08.14)
Another plateful of Pickles: he talked of his priorities being ‘localism, localism and localism’, but was this just a way of devolving responsibility for the cuts? Emma Maier in Inside Housing (08.08.14):
Alex Thomson of the right-leaning think tank Localis calls for more localism in MJ: you cannot say that we don’t cover all sides of the localism debate! (14.08.14)
Catherine Staite, director of Inlogov at Birmingham University explains why the Scottish independence referendum will fuel the localism campaign (27.07.14)
Mark Smulian argues in the LGC for ‘radical decentralisation’ in Scottish local government (19.08.14)
An interesting article by Tim Worstall in Forbes Magazine defending the big supermarkets against what he describes as ‘the usual crew of food campaigners’ (14.08.14)
LOCALISM AROUND THE COUNTRY
The Welfare Reform Act exposes the meaningless of ‘localism’ in Sandwell (09.08.14)
‘Localism was mis-sold to the public’ A view from Spalding, Lincolnshire on the exclusion of a councillor from a planning debate, after he had previously expressed a view (10.08.14)
‘Localism receives its last rites’ A comment on the apparent lack of resident engagement by a district council in West Sussex on volume housing proposals (24.07.14)
Environment Minister Lord de Mauley walks Hadrian’s Wall in a suit and tie, as he praises countryside management initiatives in Northumberland as ‘localism in action’ (19.08.2014)
Neil Carmichael, Conservative MP for Stroud, Gloucestershire takes his Labour district council to task for not having a local plan in place (02.08.2014)
Easy if you can afford it. Lord Phillmore pays £400,000 to help buy the Bottle and Glass, a closed pub in Binfield Heath near Henley, which was declared an Asset of Community Value under the Localism Act (18.08.14)