Levelling up: opportunities for Southampton City Council

Abstract

‘Levelling up’ is a key — if not the key — political agenda of the current UK government. As a domestic policy programme, levelling up aims to spread opportunity and prosperity to all regions of the UK, addressing regional imbalances in social mobility and people’s life chances. This ambition seeks to move the focus of public and private investment away from London and the South East, areas historically identified as being more productive and affluent than the rest of the country. While its city boundaries fall within this demarcated Greater South East geography, Southampton has significant areas of need and deprivation that still require — in the language of the political moment — levelling up. So, in the context of the national levelling up agenda and its corresponding policy programme, this report seeks to negotiate difficult, sometimes competing, questions about Southampton’s identity, topography, economy, health outcomes, and social disparities. Indeed, levelling up within the city may prove more crucial than emphasising its relative status within the country.

This report explores current relevant work within the Council and its comparator authorities. To provide a levelling up narrative for the city, the report will examine four overlapping agendas: the 2025 City of Culture bid, the Greener City Plan, the area-based regeneration projects, and Coastal Communities recovery. These agendas, which sit at various stages of development within the Council, can be deployed to support bids for forthcoming funding opportunities. The four agendas can also form part of a long-term approach to narrowing inequalities, developing skills and regenerating urban areas. These priorities thus extend beyond the temporary expediencies of current levelling up discussions.

This report uses mixed methodologies to conduct its analysis. A literature review of scholarly, media, and government sources establishes the national context of levelling up. Stakeholder discussions with local authority officers and academics locate the work within the Council and wider policy priorities for Southampton (see Appendix 1 for contributors). Data comparison between Southampton and its statistical neighbours gathers levelling up indicators, which are identified in the Levelling Up white paper and across its twelve accompanying “national missions”. The conclusions of this report have been drawn from critical evaluation of materials and collaborative discussion with the Council’s Policy and Strategy team.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Joseph Owen: orcid.org/0000-0002-2483-6502

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