LED Confidential

In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike ask if the new National Planning Policy Framework, published on 17 August 2026, offers an approach that is optimised for local economic development and placemaking or remains primarily a framework for building more homes. They unpack what has changed: a default yes for homes near well-connected stations, a new medium development category, easier approval for employment and clean energy schemes, and stronger support for AI growth zones and data centres;  and why that last change collides with hard limits on energy and water, with individual data centres requesting up to 3 million litres of water a day. They also explore new mayoral call-in powers and Spatial Development Strategies, the case for appraising uses on GVA per megawatt or megalitre, and whether councils have enough planners to make it work.

In this guest episode David and Mike are joined by David Waite, Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow, to ask what Andy Burnham's "Manchesterism" means for a nation whose devolution architecture is tripartite - involving the UK and Scottish governments and local authorities. They examine Glasgow City Region's bid for a £400 million integrated settlement as Scotland's clearest test case yet, and discuss why David Waite's research counsels caution on importing the mayoral model wholesale. For LED and placemaking professionals across the UK, it's an exploration of what regional empowerment can look like outside the mayoral template.

In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike use World Cup 2026's chaotic build-up and predictable result as a provocation about devolution and place-based funding. If a 48-nation, multi-billion-pound tournament still produced exactly the semi-finalists the rankings predicted, what makes anyone confident that Integrated Settlements and Mayoral Strategic Authorities will dislodge the pre-existing hierarchy of UK places? They debate whether the analogy holds once you widen the lens beyond football and why Cape Verde's run to the knockout stages raises a genuine question: would any UK place be brave enough to define its own economic specialism rather than chase the same national growth story as everyone else?

In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike make the case that England's new wave of Local Skills Improvement Plans might be among the country's most sophisticated skills planning exercises yet. They trace the leap in quality from the 2022 Trailblazer LSIPs through the first England-wide wave in 2023 to a markedly stronger second wave this year, with employer engagement running to hundreds of businesses per catchment and scale analysis of skills needs from job descriptions. The conversation weighs genuine institutional change, such as FE colleges setting out their approaches to LSIP delivery in their annual accountability statements, against a harder question: are LSIPs actually disrupting the supply side of skills, or doubling down on existing routes to delivery? For sector professionals, it's a prompt to treat LSIPs as inspiration for future strategies in other areas of LED and placemaking practice beyond skills.

In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike unpack why, in the shadow of an estimated 2,700 heat-related deaths in England and Wales this summer, longer-term adaptation to heatwaves still lacks clear strategic leadership in local economic development. They explore how heat mortality and productivity loss concentrate in older housing stock, deprived neighbourhoods and outdoor trades, and contrast the near total absence of statutory duties for heat with the governance architecture built around flood risk.  For LED and placemaking professionals, it's a call to treat heat adaptation as economic infrastructure, not just a cost.