Category Archives: Economy

A Viable Economy?

17 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by in Discussion, Economy

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Andy Murray Wimbledon win could cost economy £3.2bn

How many of you, on reading this MEN headline, were suddenly praying he’d get knocked out of Wimbledon in his next match?  No, I didn’t think so, and it’s good to know that economic policy over the last few decades hasn’t obliterated people’s souls so much that we see everything, even our own existence, in terms of its contribution to The Economy.

In fact, the article was about people throwing sickies, which obviously can’t be condoned, and no doubt the headline was deliberately inflammatory, but it is a sign of the times that these days there are forces that will try to account for every last drop of happiness, every breath of nature, in order to bow down before the forces of The Economy. In fact, the logical conclusion to the sentiment expressed in the article isn’t that we should properly book annual leave to watch Andy Murray, but that we should all stop watching Wimbledon whatever, and get our noses back to the grindstone; after all, we have GDP growth to achieve!

This is one of the themes that Steady State Manchester introduced at Transition New Mills’ recent post AGM talk. Why is it that we are in a situation where the economy appears to rule us, instead of making it work for us, facilitating the things people want  and need from life, which make them happy – such as a meaningful job, clean air and water, stable climate, safe communities, quality time with their friends and family?

The mantra of everlasting economic growth is very deeply embedded in us after decades of repetition and consolidation. Until relatively recently I wasn’t aware anyone out there was proposing an alternative. But they are, and how it is needed, as the present system is clearly not working even by its own terms – we have unprecedented man-made environmental degradation, growing unfairness and worse prospects for prosperity and happiness for future generations. By ditching the pretence that we can go on doubling the size of the economy every 27 years, for ever, whilst still occupying 1 planet, we could move to a system where the millstone of needing growth is removed; where the economy is made to work in favour of society and the environment. Steady State Manchester call this the Viable Economy, and it is described in their pamphlet, available to download on their website. Alternatively, Transition New Mills have a couple of copies we can loan out.

It’s interesting stuff, and an essential yet short read. The Transition Reading Group will be discussing it in due course.

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AGM and Steady State Manchester

08 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Economy, Events

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We’re doubling up our Annual General Meeting this year with an event from Steady State Manchester (open to non-members). Those who saw this group speak in Buxton recently said they provided a stimulating, engaging and fun evening.

Can we live well, with greater equity and within planetary limits? Steady State Manchester thinks we can. They will invite us to combine our knowledge and experiences to explore how we can achieve this and how we might get there.

Steady State Manchester believes an alternative approach to economic development is essential. They call this ‘viable economics’, making decisions in terms of a ‘Safe Operating Zone’ for humanity, which includes:

  • Re-localising food and other production in and near to the city, providing decent green jobs and more income equality
  • More money staying local and more control over savings and investment
  • Targeting wealth towards energy efficient, affordable housing and investing in other local, green and ethical enterprises
  • Taking away the focus from growth for growth’s sake.

For more detail, see their new report ‘The Viable Economy’: http://steadystatemanchester.net/our-reports.

The AGM will begin at 7.30pm, Monday 29 June at the Volunteer Centre, Union Road. We’ll keep it short and from 8pm or before, we move on to the session with Steady State Manchester. We’ll be out and finished by 9.30pm at the latest.

An agenda for the AGM plus this year’s reports are attached.

Entry is £3 (£1 low-waged) but is free to members of Transition New Mills. You will be able to join on the night – it’s currently £3-£10 depending on how much you feel you can afford.

Everyone is welcome but you can only vote if you’re a member. Note that renewals of membership for the coming year are now due.

Once again, the Steering Group aren’t proposing any changes to our constitution but if you wish to propose any, please let us know in advance so that we can make sure time is given to discuss and vote on them.

The AGM is also the time to elect people to manage and facilitate activities for the group. We have an Administrative Group of 3 people (Julian Ashworth, Mike Daw and Angharad Hughes). If you would like to nominate yourself for this group, please let us know. We can take nominations up to one hour before the meeting. If you’re thinking about seeking election to the Administrative group, do get in touch and one of us will be happy to talk with you about what’s involved. Note that we’ll be asking each of the candidates to say a few words about themselves before holding the vote so, if you are nominating yourself, please come prepared.

We hope to see you there!

AGM 2015 Agenda

Activity report 2014-15

Membership report 2014-15

Accounts 2014-15

The Parties Respond to Our Questions! Q2 – Unending Economic Growth

28 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Economy, Politics

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Here’s the second blog in our series of High Peak General Election candidate responses to our questions. The full, unedited responses for this question are available in this document: Candidates Responses-Q2.

Get involved in the discussion!

Can the economy keep growing for ever? If so, where will resources come from; if not, what is the alternative?

Charlotte Farrell (Green)

Charlotte says that clearly the economy cannot keep growing forever in the way that the other parties seem to envisage, expecting infinite growth from a finite world. She says that we are already reaching the point where the pursuit of economic growth is costing more in terms of total damage to health, society and environment than the value returned by it.

Instead the Greens would begin to shift the economy from the simple pursuit of profit to the fulfilling of needs. External costs would be factored in to economic decision making, so that economic activity accounts for its total impact. For economic activity to be sustainable it has to address human and environmental impacts and needs and begin to work for the general good of all.

Caitlin Bisknell (Labour)

Caitlin says that it’s not so much about whether the economy can keep growing, but about how it evolves to incorporate new technologies. Successful economies are those that adapt to new technologies quickest, build the new industrial base and plan the transition to avoid huge economic shocks.

The next big transition in economic terms is the move from high-carbon power to low-carbon. Therefore, we need to develop plans on grid enhancements, carbon capture and storage pipelines, distributed generation technologies, integrated recycling plants, energy efficiency improvements and electric vehicle charging networks that are the platforms for green growth of the economy as a whole.

Labour believes a million more high skilled, green jobs can be created by 2025, with British manufacturing companies producing the plant, equipment and technology.

Stephen Worrall (Liberal Democrats)

Can the economy keep growing forever? Stephen says, “No I don’t think it can but I’m not an economist!” However, he contends that we are a long way off any ‘tipping point’ that may occur.

Stephen links economic growth to a growing population. If our population became static or started to decrease an economy with no growth would be “more than OK”. In mature societies this appears to begin naturally as people have fewer children but with the world at such varying states of development the point at which global population stops growing is a “long way off”. One way to slow population growth would be to do far more to empower women to take ownership of their own birth control.

Stephen also advocates much better use and recycling of resources. We are still a throwaway society and nowhere near enough is being done at the moment to encourage recycling.

UKIP

There is little mention of the benefits or otherwise of unconstrained economic growth in the UKIP policy document. There are however, sections on ‘increasing prosperity’, ‘repairing the economy’ and ‘reducing debts we leave to our grandchildren’. The focus of the last section is leaving the EU to save £8bn pa in contributions, cutting the foreign aid budget by £9bn pa, scrapping HS2 and abolishing the government departments of Energy & Climate Change, and of Culture, Media & Sport.

Andrew Bingham (Conservative)

Andrew says that the Conservatives are committed to sustainable development in the form of stimulating economic growth and tackling the deficit, maximising wellbeing and protecting our environment, without negatively impacting on the ability of future generations to do the same. He says that these are difficult times and tough decisions need to be made.

Sustainable development recognises that the three pillars of economy, society and the environment are interconnected. The last Government initiated a series of growth reviews to put the UK on a path to strong, sustainable and balanced growth and our long term economic growth relies on protecting and enhancing the environmental resources that underpin it, and paying due regard to social needs. As part of our commitment to enhance wellbeing, we will start measuring our progress as a country, not just by how our economy is growing, but by how our lives are improving; not just by our standard of living, but by our quality of life.

The Parties Respond to Our Questions! Q1 – The Local Economy

26 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by in Economy, Politics

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We asked you to suggest questions for candidates for the 2015 General Election. We cobbled together what we thought were a representative sample of seven and duly sent them on. We received personal responses from all the candidates except UKIP’s Ian Guiver (although we did receive a copy of a UKIP policy document from Ian’s party’s head office, which we’ve used for UKIP’s slant on our questions).

We’d like to thank all the candidates who responded for their thoughtful, considered (and sometimes lengthy!) responses to our questions.

This blog is a summary of their responses for the first of these questions.

Blogs for the subsequent six questions – on issues such as rewilding, economic growth and transport – will be published every few days leading up to the election. Candidate responses are given in alphabetical order (by party name), rotated for each question. The full, unedited responses for this question are available in this document: Candidates Responses-Q1.

Please get involved and tell us what you think. What’s your reaction to what they have to say? Has this made you change your vote? Whatever you think, and however you’re casting your vote, we hope you find these blogs interesting, helpful and informative.

What steps would you take to encourage and promote the growth of local businesses in towns such as New Mills?

Andrew Bingham (Conservative)

As a former small business owner, Andrew feels passionately about this issue. He says, “The centre of New Mills, like many other towns and villages across the High Peak, is vital for the local economy and also the social cohesion of our local community so the [measures proposed by the Conservatives] will provide great help in many ways to the local communities.”

He points to a range of measures that the government has introduced to help businesses, such as capping rates and providing reliefs for smaller businesses. There is a commitment to implement a £1bn package to reduce the cost of business rates in 2015-16, with particular support for the smallest businesses and the high street, and a National Insurance cut for small businesses which will allow businesses to hire extra staff more cheaply.

Rate discounts have been introduced to encourage people to re-occupy shops that have been empty for a long period of time and Andrew says he is “confident this will help decrease the number of vacant shops and encourage thriving and diverse town centres”. Additionally, Andrew is keen that parking charges should not undermine the vitality of town centres and points out that the previous administration’s policy, which pressured councils to “hike” car parking charges, has been scrapped as have restrictions on the provision of off-street parking spaces.

Charlotte Farrell (Green)

Charlotte says that the Green Party wants to encourage small businesses which are responsive to their local area and founded within that local area. This would be achieved through:

  • The staged abolition of employers’ national insurance which would help smaller employers taking on staff and in paying the living wage, paid for by increasing corporation tax to that of the EU average.
  • Community banks which would recycle money within the local economy, lending money at preferential rates to local business rather than forcing them to go to the big banks.
  • Encouragement of new co-operatives through a development fund which would provide start-up capital on a match-funded basis.
  • Legislation making all invoices payable within 30 days which would help smaller more income-reliant businesses.
  • Recognition of the importance of self-employment, through support via the Citizens Income.
  • Clear support from local government for small businesses and local retail, such as advice and specialist training.
  • Robust action to support local markets and prevent the domination of big supermarkets.
  • A requirement on local government to favour local suppliers and traders.

Caitlin Bisknell (Labour)

Caitlin says that Labour will cut business rates for 1.5 million small business properties and then freeze them the following year. It would also establish a British Investment Bank to boost lending to small firms. This would benefit seventeen times as many businesses as opposed to the further Conservative-planned cut in corporation tax for large firms.

Labour also plans to strengthen the Green Investment Bank, which will help and promote local businesses and press for faster roll out of broadband, still an issue in rural areas.

Caitlin also notes that under her leadership High Peak Borough Council has set up its own Growth Fund specifically to help establish and expand local micro and small businesses.

Stephen Worrall (Liberal Democrats)

Stephen says the Liberal Democrats would use the Regional Growth Fund to particularly target local businesses; devolve economic decision-making away from central government to local government, enabling local government to identify better what is needed by local business; and review business rates which fall disproportionately on small local businesses and move towards taxes based on Site Value Rating in the short term and a Land Value Tax in the long term.

UKIP

UKIP says that businesses should be able to discriminate in favour of young British workers; that it would encourage councils to provide more free parking for the high street; simplify planning regulations and licences for empty commercial properties that are vacant for over a year; and extend the right of appeal for micro businesses against HMRC action.

Dialogue Opens between Borough Council and Transition New Mills

22 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by in Economy, Local plans

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Transition New Mills was very pleased to meet last week with two prominent members of High Peak Borough Council (HPBC): Godfrey Claff, who’s in charge of Regeneration policy, and Caitlin Bisknell, leader of the Council. We, along with other groups such as Sustainable Hayfield, Visit New Mills and Torr Vale Mill Preservation Trust, were invited by the local Labour Party to hear about HPBC’s strategy for local regeneration and offer our views and comments.

I thought it would be useful to share what could be the start of a very open, informative and constructive dialogue. There may well be initiatives that we can tap into to further our aims as a Transition initiative and it was good to network with other like-minded groups.

Godfrey began by presenting the HPBC’s Regeneration Growth Strategy which focuses on “poverty, people and sustainability”. There are five main strands to the strategy:

  1. Increasing local employment. Godfrey and Caitlin are visiting the 100 biggest businesses as well as a number of smaller businesses to understand their issues and see how HPBC might help. HPBC intends to improve its communication with business via an e-Newsletter.
  2. Maximising investment in High Peak. The main element of this is the establishment of a Growth Fund whereby the council will borrow money to stimulate growth. Investment is available for private sector projects that will provide an income stream to the council and new jobs, such as housing projects. I asked Godfrey whether this could include renewable energy projects; I don’t think this had occurred to him, but his reply was “come and talk to us”.
  3. Working more closely with partners on projects such as Glossop library. HPBC intends to look much more towards Manchester as our nearest thriving city and engine of growth, such as on transport to take traffic off the roads. Working together on health issues and with the Peak District Park Partnership to access EU funds was also mentioned.
  4. Maximising opportunities for residents such as encouraging the employment of local people through the planning mechanism, upgrading skills through training and a micro-finance loan scheme.
  5. Town centre development. Market towns – such as New Mills – are “hubs for change” so there will be dedicated workers assigned to these towns to help with regeneration with the aim of promoting distinctiveness. It was pointed out that these towns already receive a regeneration grant: for New Mills, HPBC allocates £4,000 which the town council is expected to match resulting in an annual fund available for regeneration of £8,000. It was further pointed out that for the last couple of years, none of this was spent…

Godfrey was keen to stress that there is no new money for regeneration; in fact, it’s being done in a time of a severe financial squeeze. Therefore, this strategy is all about a redirection of current staff and the use of existing or borrowed money. However, HPBC is keen to overcome blockages to projects, e.g. due to lack of land, money (where there is a possible income stream for the council) and/or planning issues.

The discussion afterwards covered a number of topics:

  • The different stress on very small businesses (e.g. sole trader or just a couple of employees) vs. larger businesses (100+ employees, such as Swizzels Matlow). Our own Barry Bate (there representing Visit New Mills) suggested that a business incubator space may be fruitful.
  • An EU programme for the support of small businesses and community enterprises known as ‘Leader’. This is for ‘innovative’ projects (though this has a very broad definition) and could be worth up to £1m or so.
  • Would a Traders’ Association be useful for promoting dialogue between HPBC and local businesses, and offering shared services and advice? For Hayfield? For New Mills? Or for both?
  • Totally Locally Glossop is launching this coming Monday (24 March) at Bradbury House in Glossop and everyone is welcome to go along and network and see how they’re doing things.