ARTICLES, PAPERS & LINKS

Hewdon Consulting

At Hewdon, we sometimes publish unsponsored papers that grab our attention for one reason or another. All our other writing is subject to professional and academic rigour and usually written to the brief provided by a client – so it is nice to let off steam occasionally.

Advice to Clients on Commissioning Masterplans.
Not to be confused with the inferior offerings from CABE and RICS, this is the definitive guide- and it’s much shorter than theirs.

Strategy as Vision is Strategy as Mush.
We built on a neat title from Michael Porter, the clusters and competition guru, to suggest how the public sector could improve its creation of strategies. An edited version was published it Regeneration and Renewal. We often wish more people would read it.

Foreign Direct Investment in the UK – Myths and Realities
We know some people read this one – ONS changed the way it reported FDI statistics afterwards and Sir Michael Lyons quoted it in one of his speeches. When we have time, we must update it.

LABGI – Does it do what it says on the can? & LABGI – 2006-7 Update
LABGI – Local Authority Business Grant Incentive - was a scheme to allow local authorities to keep some of the uplift in rates in their area. The critique we published led to an article in Regeneration and Renewal magazine, two workshop sessions for the Local Government Information Unit and more requests from local authorities for a copy than we have had for any other work. LABGI was abandoned shortly afterwards.

Retail Policy – Time for a Rethink?
This full-on assault on conventional planning wisdom was greeted with stunned incredulity by many influential people at first. It has taken some time for them to accept that we were right. RICS published an edited version.

Regeneration in England in the Post War Years
Hewdon papers do not usually carry the author’s name but we let Nigel Smith claim this one because he delivered it at a conference in Hong Kong as an RICS representative. RICS published an edited version.

Dominic Williams’s blog can found at http://www.dominicwilliamshewdon.blogspot.com

Nigel Smith’s blog can be found at http://nigelsmithhewdon.blogspot.com, although Hewdon no longer accepts responsibility for his views.

Local Economy

The Local Economy Policy Unit at London Southbank University was started in the 1980s by Professor Sam Aaronovitch, a noted Marxist economist. LEPU is responsible for publishing “Local Economy” a peer-reviewed academic journal. Dominic Williams is a member of the editorial board of Local Economy and has contributed a number of articles including “Spatial Dimensions of Social Mobility”, the article that was awarded the 2010 Sam Aaronovitch prize.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/lepu/index.htm

Dominic Williams writes under his own name for Local Economy. These articles are usually peer-reviewed and fully referenced, covering topics that have national, as well as local, significance.

Spatial Dimensions of Social Mobility
This is the article that won the Sam Aaronovitch prize. It attempts to explain why we finished up with concentrations of deprivation in certain areas of cities and what might be done about it. Volume 24 No. 8

Social Mobility and the Rise of the Politariat
This was written before the Coalition government unveiled the full scope of its cuts - and manages to be both prophetic and dated at the same time. Volume 24 No.8

Local Government Funding Freedoms 1997-2010
This is another retrospective, part of a Special Edition on New Labour. However, it is relevant to Hewdon’s work on infrastructure funding and paves the way for the next article. Volume 25 No 5-6

Industrial Policy
This is a retrospective on British industrial policy (and its absence under New Labour) up to the 2010 General Election. The editor of Local Economy asked me tone down some of my statements about the Bernie Ecclestone affair and the UK involvement in Libya although it now turns out the truth was far worse than I had implied. Volume 25 No 8

What do Business Rates Measure?
This is a fully referenced and dispassionate reprise of Hewdon’s arguments on LABGI, but it looks in much more detail at the relationship between business rates and economic growth - crucial to any debate over re-localisation of business rates. Volume 26 No 5 and available to read at http://lec.sagepub.com/content/26/3/145

State Aid 2000-10 - The UK Experience

Exactly what it says. Volume 26 Nos 6-7 Available at