Last week a Downtown poll revealed that a vast majority of businesses in Liverpool do not think the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) is working. True, some things have been achieved by this government inspired body, Enterprise Zone status for part of the city for example, but did we really need... [More]

I did an interview with the Business reporter from the Lancashire Evening Post, David Coates, earlier this week, and outlined Downtown’s plans to have a ‘Big Conversation’ about the future of Preston and the county. Reasonably, he reminded me that a couple of years back I had argu... [More]

The Local Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP’s) in Liverpool, Lancashire and Manchester are not delivering according to polls conducted by Downtown in Business this week. The results from each area can be viewed HERE for Liverpool, HERE for Lancashire and HERE for Manchester. So what has gon... [More]

Three years ago those wonderful souls who sit in the House of Commons were having an extremely uncomfortable time of it. Their expenses claims were being scrutinised more than they have ever been before following an investigation by the Daily Telegraph, and it emerged that some of them had been rath... [More]

Up until a week ago, the chances of a North West city adopting a governance model that was being promoted by the coalition government appeared remote. After all, Manchester and Liverpool have council’s with large Labour majorities, and both had indicated that they were likely to campaign aga... [More]