Devolution
Over-centralisation is holding back the communities that want to grow, depriving too many places of good public transport and opportunities for local businesses to thrive.
Fortunately, the successes of Mayoral Combined Authorities provide a roadmap towards better housing and infrastructure, culminating in the renaissance of local communities.
We have long advocated giving stronger powers to local people who know their places best.
Ways to empower communities
Giving mayors control over public transport
Too many parts of the UK suffer from poor connectivity, preventing people from accessing good jobs. Mayors have been steadfast champions of local public transport but too many, like Tracy Brabin, have been battling Whitehall for go ahead for years. By giving mayors new powers to build public transport, we can let Mayors get on with building, improving access to opportunity and revitalising town centres.
Recommendations:
- Empower mayors to build public transport: devolve the ability to grant Transport and Works Acts orders.
- Trust local leaders: at present, all public transport schemes worth over £200 million must be approved by the Department for Transport. Scrap this threshold and trust local leaders to deliver for their communities.
- Boost powers for trams: let councils construct and operate trams, just as they already do for buses
Devolving planning for revitalised towns
Much of the land in urban centres is poorly used and sometimes derelict, contributing to the decline of high streets and local business. Devolving planning powers to mayors so they can regenerate brownfield land is a powerful way to build the new homes people need and revitalise our towns.
Recommendations:
- Devolve power to designate growth areas: let mayors designate growth areas that permit more development. These growth areas could allow denser housing and employment development in urban cores.
- Empower mayors to assemble land: devolve land readjustment, a powerful tool used around the world to powerfully regenerate important sites
- Boost Mayoral Development Corporations: Build on the success of Mayoral Development Corporations and give them more powers to realise land value uplift from development.
Improving fiscal tools for mayors
A meaningful shift of power away from the centre requires the ability to raise revenue locally and realise the benefits of local growth. This means that mayors need fresh fiscal powers to better pursue good growth in their communities.
Recommendations:
- Capture land value: boost mayoral power to capture land values through business-rate supplements, bond issuance, and transport premium charges.
- Parking powers: let mayors enact Workplace Parking Levies without needing the approval of the Transport Secretary.
- Make the most of local development: give mayors the power to charge a council tax precept on properties around new transport stations.
Bottom up growth with community-led housing
Community-led development is a popular way of delivering popular, affordable housing driven by local people. There are many successful international case studies of community-first housing policy, including California’s popular ‘granny flats’ that now account for a third of all new homes in Los Angeles.
Recommendations:
- Renew our social homes: many social housing estates are ageing and low-quality, and residents are losing out. Expand London’s popular estate renewal ballots across the country to fund a new, bottom up wave of high-quality social housing.
- Give communities the power to shape their street: let local people democratically decide on home improvements or additional housing with Street votes. By empowering local areas, Street votes would help deliver a model of housing that is rooted in community consent.
- Build upwards: learn from the success of Haringey Council, who enabled residents of an overcrowded community with large families to extend their homes upward through their local supplementary planning document. Our most recent study estimated that almost 60% of all eligible homes chose to extend, meaning that the same small neighbourhood now contains over 1,000 more bedrooms.
Research supporting greater devolution
There is a breadth of powerful research offering helpful recommendations that would give power back to local people.
Project Hawking: tripling the size of Ox-Cam by 2050
James Howat, John Myers, Kane Emerson
December 2025