map marker United Kingdom | 17 November 2025

In this article in our series on devolution and local government reorganisation, Jim Coleman looks at Local Growth Plans that align local priorities to the UK Industrial Strategy. For existing and new Strategic Mayoral Authorities, maximising the potential of Local Growth Plans means going beyond government guidance to build ongoing consensus on investment priorities.

Local Growth Plans are central to the devolution process. They position local and sub-regional economic strategies as the main drivers of the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy and the Government’s core mission of achieving growth. While the plans are already mandatory for Strategic Mayoral Authorities, we expect them to also play a role for other future devolved Foundation Strategic authorities who hope to progress their devolution journey, including new authorities post-local government reorganisation.

The government has provided core guidance on the essential components of a Local Growth Plan. This sets out requirements for an economic overview, ‘shared priorities’ representing the region’s most significant opportunities and corresponding enablers and an evolving investment pipeline of projects. These projects must be strategically important, achievable in delivery terms and capable of crowding-in private investment into high-value industrial opportunities, strategic real estate and infrastructure, as well as housing development.

This high-level guidance leaves authorities relatively free to shape Local Growth Plans that suit their own geographies, unique characteristics and circumstances. A plan for a major city region, such as the West Midlands or Greater Manchester, is likely to be quite different from that for an area comprising smaller urban areas, such as the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority (CA) or in the future new Foundation authority areas such as Cumbria, Sussex or Norfolk & Suffolk.

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Jim Coleman
Head of Economics, WSP
Local Growth Plans are central to the devolution process. They position local and sub-regional economic strategies as the main drivers of the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy and the Government’s core mission of achieving growth.

In our work advising Cambridgeshire & Peterborough CA on their Local Growth Plan, we’re helping them build on Cambridge’s status as one of the world’s most significant life science clusters, targeting this high-growth industry alongside others such as advanced manufacturing, digital technology, clean energy, defence and agri-tech. Correspondingly, the city of Peterborough features in this plan as a location for substantial mixed-use regeneration, as well as the continuing advancement of its newly established University Quarter. Our economic advisory work for the recently ‘unitarised’ Somerset Council on their Economic Prosperity plan focuses on maximising the impact of major assets like the £31bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power station and the £4bn Agratas battery cell manufacturing facility. 

In these examples, the challenge comes in ensuring that a focus on priority industry-sectors will benefit communities across the authority’s entire area. For this reason, careful consideration of the wider ‘foundational’ economy, as well as economic spillovers across different sectors, is also critical.

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An illustration showing how Local Growth Plans relate to national strategies and other local plans.

Prioritising inclusive growth

A key focus of this work is inclusive growth. It is important to consider how a broad cross-section of the population can access opportunities in high-growth sectors such as life sciences and advanced manufacturing. Equally, there is a need to balance investment in sophisticated, high-growth industry clusters with support for other parts of the economy and workforce. 

There’s also the question of where growth will take place – which cities, towns, strategic sites or local authorities will host projects? Should devolved Strategic Mayoral Authorities try to spread investment evenly? Or should they accept that projects will focus on certain areas, just as Cambridge is a focus for life sciences, and instead put their energy into understanding how to spread the benefits by improving transport links or developing skills and learning opportunities? 

Finding an answer to these questions around wider inclusion helps achieve consensus on the Local Growth Plan. Given that not every area within a Mayoral Strategic Authority will see a project developed in its locality, authorities need to help all their stakeholders understand what drives growth and how everyone can benefit.

Building a continuous dialogue with the private sector and communities

The Modern Industrial Strategy, and the hierarchy of local plans, is all predicated on the ability to “crowd-in” private investment. Strategic Authorities, and in the future many Foundation authorities must invest further in the knowledge and resources to forge deep, collaborative partnerships with businesses, investors and developers to enable private sector funding and bring forward that credible pipeline of projects. 

Alongside this, community buy-in is particularly important, but can be challenging for example when it comes to providing housing for people working in the new jobs created by a growth plan. One of the most significant constraints on housing development is not necessarily land availability or the planning system; it's often simply the ‘politics’ of housing. People living in high-growth areas can often oppose the development of more housing and the implications this has for local services and quality of life. So authorities must consider how to encourage people to accept new housing developments. We recently supported Homes England to publish a community engagement advice note to promote this meaningful engagement.

This is why a Local Growth Plan should be more than just a document; it should be a continuous dialogue with stakeholders and communities, sharing evidence that shows the approach is working as it progresses. Authorities should also make it clear that the investment pipeline in the plan can, and will, evolve – and that communities who may have felt overlooked by the first iteration of the plan could still benefit from the growth it generates. They need to keep reminding everyone that they are part of the plan.

Achieving buy-in from a diverse range of communities, businesses, other local authorities and stakeholders is undoubtedly a challenge for a Mayoral Strategic Authority, as it will be for future Foundation authorities. It’s also a key strength of this approach; a Local Growth Plan owned by the mayor enables strategic thinking about growth. And it’s this strategic thinking that has the power to transform the UK economy. 

 
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Jim Coleman, Head of Economics, WSP

Jim Coleman is Head of Economics at WSP and is an expert in urban economic development with 30 years’ experience. He specialises in economic planning for cities and regions built around local and specialised industrial strengths in the United Kingdom and globally. Jim is also Professor of Professional Practice in the School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster.

Read our Local Government Briefing Note on Modern Industrial Strategy and Local Growth Plans

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Local Growth Plans – Frequently Asked Questions 

There is currently no set timeline for Local Growth Plan’s completion, with government saying they should be published “as soon as practicable” after determining (agreeing) shared priorities with Central Government. While Local Growth Plans are locally owned and do not require “sign-off by government, they are co-determined, and shared priorities need to be agreed with Central Government, which will undertake and share its own analysis.

Although the Local Growth Plan guidance is specifically directed at Mayoral Combined and Mayoral Combined County Authorities and the Greater London Authority, the government says Foundational Strategic Authorities (those local authorities currently in the process of devolving) or those that might want to devolve in the future should “read the guidance” and are encouraged to set out a vision for growth in their areas to attract investment.

This framework fundamentally re-engineers the central local government relationship, transitioning it from a topdown, fragmented funding model to a strategic partnership. The National government sets the broad direction with the Industrial Strategy, while Mayoral Strategic Authorities utilise the Local Growth Plan to tailor the Strategy to their specific local economic geography, co-designing a Plan that effectively directs resources.

The quality and rigour of a Mayoral Strategic Authorities Local Growth Plan is likely to be the single most important factor in securing national funding and private investment, given that economic growth is the government’s top priority and area of investment. The Local Growth Plan is the “guiding star” directing other plans and strategies.