Five
Leaders
on the art of place leadership
_What are the key ingredients for making a town or a city a genuinely connected place? We asked five senior leaders to reflect on what is most important to them…
Five
This article featured in the print version of the
Connected Places Magazine
Cllr Susan Aitken
LEADER OF GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL
When Glasgow hosted COP26, the UN’s Climate Change Conference, I realised how much we still had to learn about what investors need when assessing scalable, net zero projects in cities.
We want Glasgow to be the UK’s first net zero city by 2030 but cities aren’t necessarily geared up to deal with climate investments at scale. We’ve needed help to have serious conversations with investors in the green transition.
This is why I was proud to play a leading role in establishing the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission (3Ci). It’s so important for the public and private sectors to understand each other.
We can’t do this alone.
As a civic leader this is particularly important for me because Glasgow still bears the scars from an unjust transition away from our heavy industrial past. It wasn’t long ago that huge numbers of our communities across our city were abandoned and neglected. It was a human and environmental tragedy that we have lived with ever since.
That’s why I’m determined we don’t repeat past mistakes in the green transition to come. Across the UK we are going to spend hundreds of billions of pounds on delivering this.
It’s going to be change on a scale that hasn’t been experienced in the postwar era. It needs to happen quickly but we have to do it right.
My role is to make sure that every pound we spend delivers real benefits for both the environment and the citizens of Glasgow, helps to reduce the inequalities in our city, and creates a positive future for our young people.
If we plan properly the climate emergency can be one of the greatest opportunities for social and economic transformation that we’ve seen in our lifetimes.
Sophie Howe
THE FIRST FUTURE GENERATIONS COMMISSIONER FOR WALES
Everything is connected. What happens in terms of planning and designing infrastructure is just as important to public health as the NHS. Transport policy is, in fact, health policy.
In my former role as Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, I focused on the interests of those yet to be born, rather than pleasing voters. Our new Wellbeing of Future Generations Act places a legal requirement on public institutions and politicians to demonstrate how they have applied long-term thinking in their decisions.
Politicians have to show leadership, hold their nerve and find as many ways of conversing with citizens as they possibly can, while also being alive to the threat of disinformation. Leaders must look at those connections over the long term and work out where resources are needed.
Wales has introduced several policies that may be unpopular to some – such as 20mph zones, curtailing roadbuilding, and closing certain roads around schools to traffic. But this is about creating nicer places to live that improve human connections and health.
In Utrecht in the Netherlands, transport policy has been focused on freeing the city of cars and prioritising active travel. They restored a canal recently; and Cardiff is doing something similar.
Wales is also investing more in public transport and working to create 20-minute neighbourhoods. What is not to love about ambling around your city and breathing clean air?
I’m currently working with different countries and progressive corporates to roll out the same model we’ve implemented in Wales around embedding long-term wellbeing goals in decision-making; going beyond warm words to embedding pledges in systems of governance, ideally through legislation.
Sir John Armitt
CHAIR OF THE NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE COMMISSION
When it comes to infrastructure, the question has to be ‘Who is this all for?’ and the answer is always ‘the citizen’. Listening to the needs of individuals is often best achieved at a local level. The Commission has been saying for several years that there needs to be more devolution in the UK to provide the right level of funding to the regions and ensure more effective long term planning.
People need to be able to see that change can happen in a neighbourhood or a community and feel able to participate in local decision making.
We often find that local radio is trusted far more than national radio, and local newspapers are trusted far more than national broadsheets. The lesson here is there is an opportunity for local politicians to deliver on what people want.
But they need to be accountable, because individuals are more likely to see local representatives walking down the high street – and stop them for a chat – than their national counterparts. Local leadership is about those elected making promises about what they are going to do for a community, and then being able to deliver through having sufficient financial resource and the necessary powers.
Politicians have to work hard to maintain their relationship with the electorate, but must aim for pace of delivery over striving for perfection all of the time. Citizens understand infrastructure because they get to use it in all its forms first hand; but it is up to them to decide if they want to pay more to receive an improved quality of service.
And we’re also fostering innovation – those fledgling businesses with a great idea – we’re working with universities to support them with seed finance.
But my biggest leadership challenge is we haven’t had the leadership from central government. As Mayor I can announce something but businesses won’t come with me if there isn’t a clear direction of travel from the centre. That stability of vision is so important.
Devolution is a game changer. That’s how we can work more collaboratively locally. We’re going to get two more mayors in Yorkshire and I’m hoping that all four mayors will be a real force of nature when it comes to leading Yorkshire’s new industrial revolution.
Our region played a part in the first industrial revolution – we were part of the problem you might say – but we are also going to be the solution.
Dr Susie Mitchell
GLASGOW RIVERSIDE INNOVATION DISTRICT (GRID)
For the last decade I’ve had the privilege of leading the Glasgow City of Science and Innovation (GCoSI) initiative, which aims to raise the profile of Glasgow as a home for science and innovation, as well as new research funding and private investment.
I’ve just begun a new role supporting the development of Glasgow’s Riverside Innovation District (GRID), a partnership between the University of Glasgow, Scottish Enterprise and Glasgow City Council. With a strong civic mission, its ambition is to reimagine the city’s proud industrial heritage and establish Glasgow’s leadership in the industries of the future.
Over the years, place leaders in other cities have often asked me how Glasgow has created the deep co-operation and cross-sector partnerships that we enjoy here. Of course I’ll point to the progressive partnership models that connect the ecosystem like GCoSI, Glasgow Economic Leadership, and our innovation districts. These have been powerful and transformative catalysts for growth.
