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.

PRD supported London borough of Croydon to develop Unlocking Croydon’s Potential, an inward investment plan for the borough and the first Local Authority Growth Plan launched in response to the new London Growth Plan.

These plans set out a clear and confident case for why Croydon is primed for investment, partnership and growth and what these must deliver.

Boasting connectivity, a growing population and a resilient business base, Croydon is well-suited for sustainable investment. It also faces acute challenges, namely rising living costs, uneven opportunity and a weakening traditional retail core. These issues have begun to test market confidence and have limited the borough’s ability to shape an inclusive economy.

In pursuit of reframing the narrative and illuminating Croydon’s potential, PRD updated the borough’s economic baseline. This revealed critical trends such as a sharp rise in town centre residents and economic strengths in health, construction, the foundational economy, and logistics. This informed a clear-eyed assessment of Croydon’s strengths, as well as barriers to investment.

For the inward investment plan, Unlocking Croydon’s Potential, we led a programme of engagement, working closely with officers, members, businesses, community groups and developers. Alongside our evidence base, engagement helped define a set of inward investment principles and priority outcomes that are needed to deliver, both in terms of specific places or neighbourhoods and wider economic considerations such as upskilling and enterprise opportunities.

Croydon’s new Growth Plan sets out key sites and investment narratives, showcasing the borough’s ambitious plans and abundant benefits. It is designed to raise confidence and encourage partnership working in the market. It embraces a collaborative model for delivery of regeneration that works for its community.

PRD worked with three Southwark- & Lambeth-based Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) – Better Bankside, Team London Bridge, and WeAreWaterloo – to identify opportunities for them to help their levy-paying member businesses meet their employment needs. The BIDs jointly established EmploySE1 in 2011 as a localised recruitment service for their members, but following a hiatus since 2021, wanted to redevelop it in a format that offers a more updated service provision.

We undertook a programme of desk-based research and engagement to develop a set of recommendations for the BIDs to take forward. The service has always had a local focus, and so we analysed secondary data to provide a snapshot of the local socio-economic context. This was followed by a series of engagement activities such as a survey and focus groups to understand member businesses’ current challenges and needs around recruitment, training and development, and retention, as well as one-to-one conversations with external stakeholders to learn from their experience and explore potential for partnerships in the area. This insight informed the development of recommendations for what the new EmploySE1 service might look like, and the identification of opportunities for the BIDs to pursue. After testing these ideas with the BIDs, we presented our findings and recommendations in a report.

The outcomes of this work will inform future business planning and budget allocation within the BIDs, with the aim of remaining agile and continuously evolving to meet business needs.

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).

As part of the UK Shared Propserity Fund, Thanet District Council wanted to support its voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector by creating opportunities for networking, training and funding support as well as working with the sector to build capacity and promote collaboration.  The council commissioned PRD to create a database of VCSE organisations in Thanet and understanding their challenges and aspirations.

We collected detailed information from hundreds of organisations across the district, focusing on smaller organisations that serve hyperlocal communities. We surveyed 224 organisations, which revealed that recruiting new volunteers and investing in volunteers are among the top priorities for VCSE organisations. We also held a workshop with sector representatives to inform the training and capacity-building support the council could offer.

We then ran ‘The Big Ideas Conversation’, a series of engagement events throughout the district focusing on how to build community capacity for volunteering, empower people through volunteering, and rethink how the VCSE sector should position and offer volunteering opportunities.

The final report detailed the findings from the research and recommendations to tie into the council’s different UKSPF workstreams over the next two years, specifically, the Community Champions Programme and People and Skills: Enrichment and Volunteering Activities.  

PRD developed an in-depth evidence base exploring the social and economic challenges across the Thames Estuary region. We used this to identify focus neighbourhoods within which Chris Clarke, our collaborator, carried out detailed conversations with residents. Our report was structured around the Fairness Foundation’s “Fair Necessities” (essentials, opportunities, rewards, exchange and treatment) and combines detailed mapping of indicators across the region with summaries and quotations from on the ground engagement.

From this evidence, we developed a five-point fairness plan of practical recommendations for how inward investment into the Estuary can respond to and address local need.

The Thames Estuary Growth Board have adopted the Five Point Fairness Plan as a key strategic document to guide all their operations. The methodology of highly local evidence analysis and targeted conversations has been replicated by developers across the region to ensure that social value contributions are directly addressing local need.

UN_BIASED was an exciting and innovative research and engagement project looking to produce actionable recommendations to move towards a truly inclusive economy, with a focus on women’s employment and opportunities. Central District Alliance Business Improvement District, a Central London BID with more than 160,000 employees and 17,000 businesses, including multi-national organisations, in partnership with the London Communication Agency (LCA), commissioned PRD and our collaborators to deliver a programme of desktop research and engagement to shape this project.  ​

Fundamental to the success of UN_BIASED was a foundation in robust quantitative and qualitative research that can enable an understanding of the issues, challenges, and barriers to change. This sits alongside insights from local employees and employers, and learning from best practice around the world, to identify realistic actions that will deliver an inclusive economy. ​

Our work included taking over a local coffee shop for a drop in a chat session, pop up engagement at careers fairs, focus groups, stakeholder interviews and surveys. We also hosted a co-design workshop to create recommendations for the future. Our processes ensured the voices of people working in Central London played a role in designing recommendations for change.

More information about the project is available on the UN_BIASED website and the report can be downloaded here.