Preston Model

= UK version, in the city of Preston, of the famous 'Cleveland' model, based on mobilizing anchor institutions (hospitals, universities), for the creation of a cooperative and localized economy.

Description

Justin Reynolds:

"Preston City Council’s work towards developing an economic ecosystem rooted in co-operative principles informed elements of the programme on which Labour fought June’s general election. It’s also at the heart of a major new report, seeking to establish a philosophy to guide the party’s economic policy at local and national level.

The foundations of the Preston Model were laid in 2013, as the Labour-run council cast around for ideas to rebuild the economy of a city ranked in the bottom 20 per cent of the deprivation index, and facing the near-halving of its central government grant from £30m to £18m.

The council looked across the Atlantic to find a possible way forward. It found it in the example of Cleveland, a rust-belt city that has pioneered initiatives to consolidate and widen the circulation of wealth within its economic orbit.

Cleveland’s ’community wealth building’ project emphasises the role large institutions rooted in a municipality such as hospitals, airports, colleges, housing associations – and local authorities themselves – can play as ‘anchors’ around which regional economic ecosystems can stabilise and grow.

By allocating more of their spend budgets to local suppliers and producers, recruiting from the workforce on their doorsteps and incubating local businesses and community organisations, the anchors can keep wealth flowing in municipal economies." (http://www.citymetric.com/politics/could-preston-provide-new-economic-model-britain-s-cities-3243)

More Information

• CLIFFORD SINGER on the Preston Model, http://thenextsystem.org/the-preston-model/

• see also, their Social Value Procurement Framework

• Report: "Co-operative Activity in Preston.", http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/14526/1/Co-operative%20activity%20PrestonREPORT%20copy.pdf