Local London
Local London is a partnership of 8 London boroughs in the north and east of the Capital working to respond to a set of mutual issues and challenges. It was created in 2016.
Geographically, our partnership consists of an area comprising Enfield, Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Newham, Barking & Dagenham and Havering, which are boroughs located north of the River Thames; and Greenwich and Bexley to the south.
Representing more than 2 million residents and nearly 100,000 businesses, Local London is champion for this sub-region to ensure it benefits from existing and emerging opportunities.
Our partnership also acts as the voice for our sub-region making its views and needs known to decision-makers regionally and nationally, and lobbies for powers, resources and financial support to help us realise our ambitions.
Find out more about Local London at local.london
What do we do?
Local London is one of four regional partnerships in London. Each regional partnership represents several boroughs within a sub-region of London. Our role is varied and wide-ranging. As a collective, our intention is to deliver outcomes which benefit all our member boroughs.
Firstly, we act as a mouthpiece for the sub-region. This means making sure that where key decisions are being made about the future of our region; or where there are proposals, plans or projects affecting our sub-region, we act as its voice. This could mean active involvement on boards or meetings; submitting detailed responses to consultations, or pitching for specific resources or powers.
Secondly, we act as am an influencer for the sub-region. As a collective, we understand the geography, demography and economy of this place well. For example, the River Thames cuts across our sub region, so getting from our northern boroughs to those in the south can be challenging, and usually means our residents will need to commute to central London first. For that reason, one of our lobbying activities is about improving cross-river links. In addition, our lobbying role is about securing new or devolved powers from the Mayor of London or the national Government. It’s our belief that making decisions closer to where people live means those decisions are more relevant.
Thirdly, we act in a fundraising and income generation capacity for the sub-region. This means bidding for grants and other financial resources for specific purposes. We currently oversee three programmes and projects around work and health, careers development and digital improvement.
Our partnership ambition statement is ‘Globally connected, locally focussed’. This reflects our ethos, expressly in a post-Brexit world, we will need to build better and stronger links globally to deliver our ambitions locally. A key part of our work going forward will be about finding and nurturing those links – especially as EU funding streams dry up. One of the Mayor of London’s key campaigns is ‘London is Open’, which aims to attract foreign businesses to the UK. We support that ambition, and part of our work between 2019 and 2022 will be about promoting our own offer to international partners.
How do we work?
The Local London Plan sets out the direction of our work in 2019/20. Our intention is to deliver outcomes that benefit all our member boroughs.
To that end, we have identified a set of mutually-beneficial issues to focus our energies upon.
They are:
- Skills and employment - to ensure that local people have the skills needed to access high-quality job opportunities now and in future
- Infrastructure – to encourage investment in transport, buildings and digital connectivity within our sub-region
- Housing – to support the need to build and provide good-quality housing to meet ambitious targets
- Business – to support our business community to sustain and thrive
- Communities – to support our communities to be strong and cohesive
This is a very broad list of issues and the work taking place to support each of them is bespoke
How are we held accountable?
Our Joint Committee holds Local London to account. This is made up of representatives of the member authorities. The Leader/CE Board provides direction and ensures the work of Local London is understood and on track.
There are various boards that bring partners and local authorities together to oversee and deliver the business of Local London, these include:
- Skills and Employment Board – oversees the skills strategy and progressing specific issues around construction, enterprise and ESOL
- Growth Board – inputs into the Local Industrial Strategy, overseeing our approach to infrastructure and setting out our inward investment plan
- Communities Board – ensures that cohesion issues are considered strategically and developing joint approaches with health, police, education and business
- Programme Board – provides oversight around our range of funded programmes and seeking out future opportunities that align with our ambitions
Please read our three-year plan for Local London.
