Local growth plans and place based business cases
Recent commentary on the UK’s emerging regional growth strategy highlights the government’s continued move towards Local Growth Plans and Place-Based Business Cases as the next phase of place-based investment reform.
https://www.consultancy.uk/news/43790/uk-overhauls-regional-growth-strategy-to-close-economic-gap
On paper, it feels like a clear continuation of the shift towards more joined-up, place-led thinking — bringing housing, transport, skills, health and infrastructure into a more integrated planning and investment framework.
And broadly speaking, that direction of travel is understandable and, in many ways, necessary. But it still leaves a bigger question hanging.
Why, after so many iterations of policy reform, does the same gap between strategy and delivery persist at place level?
From a Shaping the Market perspective, that’s the real issue here. Not the design of the framework — but the system it is being asked to operate within.
On paper, the direction of travel is increasingly coherent. Local Growth Plans are intended to provide long-term strategic roadmaps for places. Place-Based BusinessCases are designed to bring together housing, transport, skills, health, infrastructure and innovation into a single, more integrated investment logic.
The intention is clear: move away from fragmented funding streams and isolated projects, and towards something more joined-up and place-based.
In theory, that should improve both decision-making and outcomes. But in practice, the UK still doesn’t really operate as a single system for place-based growth. It operates through three distinct systems that overlap, but don’t fully align:
• Political systems, working to short cycles and shifting priorities
• Investment systems, working to long-term confidence, risk and return
• Delivery systems, working within capacity constraints, procurement structures and institutional limits
PBBCs sit across all three. That is where their potential lies — but also where the tension sits. Because they are effectively being asked to hold together systems that don’t naturally move in sync.
The challenge in UK place-based policy is rarely the absence of strategy.
It is what happens between strategies. Political intent doesn’t automatically translate into investable propositions.
Investment logic doesn’t naturally align with political timeframes. And delivery systems are often expected to absorb both, while operating under real-world constraints. What emerges is a familiar pattern: strong strategy at the front end, but uneven translation through the system.
Not because places lack ambition, but because ambition is moving through systems that don’t interpret risk, value or time in the same way.
This is the point that keeps showing up across regional growth policy — and it’s the point that still isn’t fully being addressed.
One of the clearest examples of this is the way “social value” and wider place-based outcomes are now embedded in appraisal frameworks.
That shift is real. It matters. And it reflects a broader and more mature understanding of what public investment is trying to achieve.
But it’s also where a gap becomes visible. Because the challenge is no longer whether these factors are included in decision-making.
It is whether they are being translated into clear, place-specific and measurable metrics that actually influence investment decisions over time.
At the moment, too often, they sit at the level of principle rather than operating as tools that shape behaviour. And that matters.
Because investment decisions are not ultimately made on intent — they are made on clarity, consistency and confidence over time.
Without that, “social value” risks remaining something that is acknowledged, rather than something that actively changes outcomes.
It is right that capacity constraints are being highlighted in areas like economics, data and business case development.
But I don’t think this is just a technical skills issue. It is something deeper than that.
It is about system translation capacity. The ability to move between:
• Political language and intent
• Analytical frameworks and evidence
• Investment logic and risk assessment
• Delivery reality and institutional constraint
This is where many place-based systems are still struggling.
Not in setting direction, but in maintaining coherence as that direction moves between different decision environments.
And increasingly, that is what determines whether something becomes investable — or remains a well-articulated plan.
The North East is often used as an example of where place-based growth policy can be tested in practice — particularly around energy transition, advanced manufacturing, housing and regeneration.
There is no shortage of ambition. No shortage of pipeline. No shortage of strategy.
The question is more subtle than that.
It is whether those propositions remain consistent, credible and investable as they move through changing policy frameworks, funding mechanisms and investment expectations.
Because that consistency — or lack of it — is what increasingly shapes investor behaviour.
Not the strength of the strategy at a moment in time, but whether it holds its shape across time.
PBBCs and Local Growth Plans are not just technical reforms.
They are a test of whether the UK can move from fragmented place-based policy towards something more genuinely aligned across politics, capital and delivery.
That requires more than better frameworks.
It requires a clearer understanding of how confidence is built, how risk is interpreted, and how investment decisions are sustained over time in real places.
This is really the space we are working in through Shaping the Market — not just what policy says, but how systems actually behave when they meet reality.
Because without that alignment, the system continues to do what it has done for some time:
produce strong strategies — and uneven translation into investment and delivery.
The challenge ahead is not to design better plans for places. It is to make sure that politics, capital and delivery can actually align in practice — not just in policy language. Until that happens, place-based growth will continue to depend less on the quality of strategy, and more on how well systems can translate between themselves.