Projects

Brighton & Hove City council sought to develop a new Economic Strategy to guide their activity between 2024-2027.

It was important for Brighton & Hove City Council that the Economic Strategy was shaped in partnership with businesses and organisations across the city, who will help deliver any actions. They were also keen that in process of developing the strategy itself new relationships were established.

PRD took a collaborative approach which sought input from stakeholders from the start of the process. This involved a series of themed workshops with council officers, civil society organisations and businesses. Our conversations were broader than what might be included in a traditional economic strategy, for example bringing in representatives from public health, culture and circular economy, recognising the links between these and the economy of the city.

Alongside this, we developed a short evidence base shaped around how Brighton & Hove’s economy could be more fair, green and productive. This situated Brighton & Hove’s economy within wider national economic challenges and opportunities.

Our outputs are still being developed, but include a short visual evidence base and a strategy report.

After a deep Citizens’ Assembly engagement process with residents, businesses and local stakeholders, LB Camden identified a need to preserve and further develop community assets and services and to better support its residents to live full and healthy lives in the evening and night time. LB Camden commissioned PRD to develop an Evening and Night Time Strategy to bring context to the recommendations from engagement and explore both interventions and strategies for delivery within the council and with external partners.

We brought together diverse sources of data to create the evidence base for the strategy across night workers, cultural infrastructure and night time venues, business challenges, women’s safety and anti-social behaviour. This supported and added emphasis to the Citizens’ Assembly conclusions and informed our engagement across the council to identify the priority actions to be taken forward in the strategy.

Our output, the draft Camden Evening and Night Time Strategy, is currently being reviewed for adoption. The strategy proposes long-term resident and business engagement to continue to develop night time interventions and initiatives, making it responsive to local needs and continually updated as the night time economy changes and grows.

We worked with Gravesham Borough Council to help direct the council’s regeneration vision up to 2040. This involved the production of an up to date social, economic and environmental evidence base to demonstrate intra-borough inequalities, particularly around health and wellbeing.

Using evidence of challenges facing local communities, we worked with officers at the council across housing, open spaces, regeneration and economic development to develop the outcomes they wish to achieve as council-wide ambitions. This Theory of Change process allowed the council to think more holistically about the roadmap to delivering change for the borough’s residents and businesses, and the outcomes of the exercise will inform the council’s future regeneration strategy and case-making over the coming decades.

The London Borough of Lambeth sought to establish a council-owned housing company to reach ambitious targets for building new social rented housing. PRD initially advised on organisational structuring, delivery strategy and programme management options; undertook extensive engagement and education with councillors, officers, and other stakeholders; liaised with tax, accounting, and legal advisors to test the robustness of the proposed structure against Homes for Lambeth’s (HfL) development goals; helped establish a company Board; and supported the Board to consider messaging and opportunities to meet wider council objectives.

Since Cabinet approved PRD’s recommendation to establish HfL as a wholly-owned company with a group structure and the detailed governance proposals, we have continued to support HfL at the Board, executive and wider stakeholder levels. With partners , PRD has carried out business and resource planning, co-ordinated legal advice on loans and financing, prepared documents for the Regulator of Social Housing, and developed agreements between the council and HfL.

Huntingdonshire Futures is a collaborative strategy which sets out a shared vision for the future of Huntingdonshire in 2050 and a clear way forward to achieve it. ​Huntingdonshire District Council commissioned PRD to deliver a wide reaching and deliberative programme of community engagement to ensure that local people’s ideas and perspectives informed the strategy.  ​

We had more than 800 conversations about the future with local people from across the District ranging from eight to 94 years old. We used a variety of approaches, from pop-up exhibitions in high footfall areas to focus groups and classroom sessions in schools. ​

To ensure diversity of voices we collaborated with community organisations, such as food banks, older people’s groups, youth organisations, schools, and colleges. This approach meant local people were able to shape the priorities and actions for the future.

Huntingdonshire Futures can be read here (PDF).

Ealing is vital to London’s economy. The borough contains around 8% of the city’s designated industrial floorspace, which includes important activity ranging from high-tech manufacturing to logistics. Demand for industrial space has reached unprecedented levels. Ealing wanted to harness this to deliver maximum benefits for its residents.

Together with We Made That, PRD undertook two pieces of research: an Inclusive Economy baseline and an Industrial Workspace Audit. The process brought together a broad range of evidence to enable officers and politicians to think differently about the borough’s socioeconomic performance. This showed that despite perceptions of affluence, Ealing has a range of deeply embedded challenges, ranging from rising in-work poverty to a severe and disproportionate COVID-19 impact.

Industrious Ealing also evidenced significant market failures in the borough’s industrial land market that cannot be addressed through planning policy alone. Our recommendations proposed a coordinated and proactive response to these challenges encompassing the wider policy levers available to the council. Industrious Ealing will enable the borough to maximise and intensify its supply of industrial land whilst also addressing key social, economic, and environmental challenges.

PRD has an ongoing relationship with LB Newham across several workstreams. For example, we developed a comprehensive evidence base for the council’s inclusive economy strategy, which is formed around community wealth building principles. Community wealth building is an economic development approach that redirects wealth and the gains of economic growth back to local neighbourhoods and people.

In response to Covid-19, throughout which Newham’s residents were among the hardest-hit in the country, the council commissioned PRD to expand the strategy to a wider recovery and reorientation plan, which has formed the basis of the borough’s new Corporate Plan.

We have also undertaken research on the impacts of Covid-19 throughout Newham, supported development of a new affordable workspace programme, delivered data training for officers, established a measurement framework for the Corporate Plan and other strategies, and provided socioeconomic data to support masterplanning in areas including Stratford, Canning Town, and Custom House.

PRD developed an economic strategy and action plan built on an evidence base and commitments from council partners to help embed and deliver the strategy. The work began with a highly visual evidence base structured around three topics:

• Economy & people: Who is in the economy and what they are doing? (e.g. sector growth/change, resident qualifications, working from home, commercial floorspace, travel to/from Lewisham for work, younger and older population projections, economic inactivity)
• Economy & planet: How does the economy affect the planet and vice versa? (e.g. emissions hotspots, commercial stock energy performance ratings, air quality, carbon-intensive jobs, just transition, waste production and processing)
• Economy & prosperity: What do people get out of the economy? (e.g. worker and resident job quality and pay, claimants, access to town centres/amenities, access to public transport)

For each theme, we considered borough-wide data, but reviewed more granular information wherever possible to understand differences across neighbourhoods and whether any specific places would benefit from targeted actions in the strategy.

To cater to stakeholders’ differing levels of time and data confidence, we produced three variants of the evidence base: a traditional PDF of the complete evidence base, with maps, graphs, tables, and our written commentary; a shorter video version with a staff member talking through headline findings via maps and graphs; and a shorter still three-page PDF focusing on just the headline findings per theme and follow-on considerations for the strategy.

We also developed a set of themes and target geographical areas to give structure to the strategy, based on baseline findings and the council’s own economic ambitions: enterprise and creativity, opportunities for young people, decarbonisation, and prosperity—all under a banner of inclusive economy.

An engagement phase followed the baseline work, in which we held three roundtable discussions with the council and its Local Strategic Partnership to test the strategy themes, develop a vision, and learn how LSP members may be able to support the strategy through their own operations.

The action plan draws on economy-related actions from other Lewisham Council policies and incorporates new actions for the council and LSP to implement together. The strategy focuses on actions that council and LSP members can directly deliver or influence, such as through their services and contracts. However, recognising that some of the most critical challenges are outside of council control (e.g. pressing need for funding for commercial stock retrofit), we also included practical actions around partnerships and lobbying to bring forward change.

As part of the London Borough of Newham’s successful application to the government’s UK Community Renewal Fund, PRD and Useful Projects were commissioned to develop an overarching business case and delivery strategy for green economy initiatives in North Woolwich and Beckton.

Our work is underpinned by a strong evidence base, where we identify the existing social, economic and environmental challenges of the area. We used innovative concepts, such as the Doughnut Economics framework, and tools such as a high-level material flow analysis (MFA) to determine opportunities for green economic growth.

Our approach also included extensive stakeholder and community engagement. We conducted a series of 1-2-1 sessions with people in strategic and delivery organisations such as the GLA, ReLondon, Royal Docks, Albert Island and local education institutions. We also took a citizen-led approach for our community engagement to ensure we built on local capacity and that the people living, working, and studying in Beckton and North Woolwich informed the way forward.

The work has identified a clear vision for Beckton and North Woolwich as Newham’s pioneer for building a future economy that delivers for people and the planet, as well as a set of ‘catalytic’ and ‘enabling’ interventions which will support this evolution. The work will ultimately inform corporate decision making regarding future policy and investment across the borough.

The OPDC development area spans the boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham, Brent and Ealing and is responsible for regenerating 950 hectares around Old Oak Common and the industrial Park Royal site. The project will bring 24,000 homes, 55,000 jobs, and a new HS2 station. Within Park Royal is a substantial element of the site. Covering around 500 hectares, it is London’s largest areas of designated Strategic Industrial Land (SIL). Its economy comprises over 35,000 jobs spread across around 2,000 businesses and contributes circa £2 billion economic output (GVA) per annum.

PRD has been involved in several studies and strategies for this area:

• We produced the What Works: Park Royal study to develop clear plans for industrial regeneration in Park Royal. The study advises how the economy can grow and evolve in response to Covid-19 and nearby non-industrial regeneration, with an explicit focus on providing new affordable workspace.
• We built a bespoke Industrial Funding Strategy to support the OPDC’s ambitions for industrial growth in Park Royal and Old Oak North, along with partners Newbridge Advisors and Gerald Eve. The IFS identifies spaces requiring investment and intensification, investment gaps, funding sources to meet needs/fill the gaps, and how OPDC and its partners can access the funding sources. Our team consulted with cross-sector stakeholders (including the core investor, developer and occupier market) to inform the strategy, which will directly drive how OPDC delivers regeneration.
• We developed a Socioeconomic Funding Strategy with Regeneris Consulting to identify sources such as the Apprenticeships Levy, domestic and European funding, business rate retention, and private investment that can be used for local social and economic initiatives.
• PRD team members have also worked on the OPDC’s Future Sectors Study, Food Sector Study, Regeneration Funding Study, and the Park Royal Intensification Study.

Working alongside and Atkins, Oxford City Council, Oxford County Council, Network Rail, and the Oxfordshire LEP, PRD is providing strategic property development, value capture, viability and delivery advice to inform and guide the updated masterplan for this globally important city gateway.

Drawing on our experience of harnessing infrastructure investment to drive wider benefits, our economic work in Oxford and our strong background in formulating delivery options and viability assessments, we are establishing a business case for adjacent station redevelopment and bringing delivery certainty to the project.

London’s Royal Docks is one of the city’s most substantial regeneration sites, with 15,000 homes and 40,000 jobs arriving in the next two decades. PRD team members have been involved with the Royal Docks for several years, helping establish an economic vision for the area and indicators of successful regeneration.

We are currently working with the Royal Docks Team—a partnership between the Greater London Authority and LB Newham—to create the Royal Docks Success Framework, which sets out a Theory of Change for regeneration. The Framework details practical monitoring and evaluation criteria for tracking the evolution of the area and understanding progress towards the success indicators/outcomes.

Establishing the foundations for a partnership approach to data collection has been an important element of the work. This has involved in-depth engagement with stakeholders across the area (including developers, anchors businesses and institutions, workspaces, public sector partners, and the community) to map the types of data and information that they hold which could contribute to the partnership, their appetite to share information, and their willingness to collaborate on new forms of social and economic research to respond to evidence gaps.

We also carried out a review of the Royal Docks Team’s delivery progress during its first two years, which has helped refine feasible delivery timescales and influenced decisions about how the Team will operate throughout the rest of the development process.

LB Southwark commissioned PRD to develop an economic evidence base for the borough as the first step towards establishing a new economic strategy. The evidence base centres on three core themes and the issues that cut across them:

• How fair is Southwark’s economy? (e.g. access to jobs, amenities, and services; income inequality; opportunities for young people)
• How green is Southwark’s economy? (e.g. economy-related emissions; green jobs; implications and equity of green growth)
• How resilient is Southwark’s economy? (e.g. resilience of sectors, residents, workers; climate resilience)

With a strong focus on issues of equity and addressing inequality, the evidence base uses a mix of ‘traditional’ ONS social and economic indicators (e.g. sector breakdowns, jobs and business growth, income) and non-governmental data that provides more nuance on inequality and communities, such as information from the Urban Health Index, Trust for London, Consumer Data Research Centre, Civic Strength Index, and emerging research on low carbon goods and services activities. To understand the spatial aspects of inequality across the borough, the evidence base uses numerous maps, which tend to highlight central Southwark as an area where inequality is particularly embedded and deep.

Alongside highly visual data analysis, we provided a series of decision points and considerations for each theme, intended to prompt LB Southwark on which approaches or focus areas may be most suitable for the new economic strategy.

Acting on a key commitment within the Council’s Delivery Plan, LB Southwark established the Southwark Land Commission in September 2022, a first of its kind in London. The Southwark Land Commission was a six-month investigation as part of the council’s commitment to deliver on its ‘Fairer, Greener, Safer’ Plan. It seeks to democratise land in the borough by rebalancing influence over land and property, to ensure that land in the borough delivers the broadest possible benefit, and to critically look at what needs to change to deliver more ‘public good’ from land use.

PRD helped curate an evidence-based process, led by an independent group of diverse and representative group of people, from landowners, members of Southwark’s civil society and leading thinkers and experts on the subject, to serve as Members of the Commission. The land commission challenged how land and space is used to benefit the local communities, with an explicit objective to “free up land for public good”.

Over the course of six months, the commission met formally on four occasions; firstly, to review challenges and existing evidence; secondly, to reflect on the insights and views sourced from community groups and individuals reached via a parallel engagement programme; then thirdly, to identify opportunities to act and to draft initial recommendations; and finally, to refine these proposals and prioritise recommended actions.

The process was also enriched through a community engagement programme to understand and test ideas and actions, in the form of four area-based workshops, targeted sessions to reach under-represented groups (through Southwark Youth Parliament and the Southwark Black Parents Forum), and feedback workshops on emerging recommendations, led by We Made That. PRD also carried out one-to-one discussions with key stakeholders.

The Commission came up with a set of seven recommendations, underpinned by the guiding principles, rooted in maximising social purpose, and securing long-term environmental sustainability. The full list of recommendations and priority actions are available in the Land for Good report on Southwark Council’s website.

The Southwark Land Commission is a good starting point for other places in the UK to develop their own plans of action for this important agenda. As such, Southwark Cabinet will formally consider the Commission’s report and recommendations, and an official response from the council is expected soon.

For more content, see our journal posts: Democratising land for public good: reflections from the Southwark Land Commission, Learning from the Southwark Land Commission: implications for other authorities

PRD is working with the London Borough of Waltham Forest to support the findings of an independent Affordable Housing Commission. The council wanted external expert scrutiny to understand what it can do to accelerate the delivery of more genuinely affordable homes. PRD provided a wealth of contemporary evidence tracking the impact of development over the last decade to support the recommendations of the Commission. This combined a mix of granular data, which was then tested and validated through resident engagement.

Waltham Forest is one of the most rapidly changing boroughs in London, having the fastest house price growth since 2012. Using the London Planning Datahub, PRD identified the neighbourhoods within the borough that had seen the highest housing development over the last ten years. From this, we used the 2021 Census to compare differences between 2011 and 2021, showing how the borough’s demographics have changed and the contribution of new housing development towards these changes. The granularity of the Census enabled a detailed understanding of changes at development level in areas of highest housing growth. This provided deep insight into who had moved into new homes and the role that tenure (affordable vs market housing) played in these changes.

We supplemented this with a programme of in-depth engagement through focus groups in the areas that had seen the highest development, which helped to test the quantitative data and understand how local people were experiencing area change. Marrying good data with rich qualitative evidence provided a deep understanding of the role of development in the borough’s growth story over the last ten years combined with communities’ experience of rapid change.