The drama of ‘LED on the edge’
- David Marlow
- May 11
- 5 min read
Last week I went to see ‘The Drama’ — the new Zendaya / Robert Pattinson film that gleefully tears up the romcom rulebook. About half an hour in, as the tropes of the genre collapsed in real time, I found myself thinking: "It's difficult to see how this can end happily."
That line has stayed with me — not because of the film, but because it perfectly captures where local economic development now finds itself.
Recent LED Confidential episodes have an emergent pattern which might match ‘The Drama’ of my cinema visit. Different conversations, different entry points — but an underlying unease, which can only have been amplified by the political and media frenzies of the May 7th elections.
1. AI is accelerating faster than our institutions can absorb
We've now done two espresso shots on AI. The most recent this week suggested how it is fundamentally reframing the foundations for places' economic and skills strategies. An April espresso focused on how it is transforming the ways LED policymakers and practitioners’ work. LED teams are being asked to make sense of AI risks and opportunities that are evolving radically and rapidly. The capacity, tools, and governance frameworks simply aren't keeping pace. AI will reshape labour markets, business models, and civic expectations — and the way we manage them — in novel, unprecedented ways.
2. England's three-track devolution risks increasing LED polarisation and inequality
Our current signature episode with Mayor Claire Ward of East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) graphically surfaces the differences — socio-economic, in policy influence and resources — between Mayoral Strategic Authority trailblazers like Greater Manchester (GMCA) and West Midlands (WMCA,) second-generation MCAs like EMCCA, those following behind, and non-MCA geographies. The asymmetry between these fundamentally different political economies is widening. Espressos on fiscal devolution and the Local Growth Fund illustrate how uneven incentives augment a system that is quietly creating winners and losers without ever admitting that's what it's doing.
3. Local authorities (LAs) are in their own perfect storm
Even before May 7th, we were arguing that the positioning of LED as a primary priority for LAs was under assault. Our ‘perfect storm' espresso explored whether the 2026/27 financial settlement and the revised Outcomes Framework would drive local authorities into an ever-increasing focus on care, SEND, and cosmetic place-based programmes. Concurrently, our espresso on the capacity crunch of LGR recognised how reorganisation across swathes of England is likely to leave LED teams with fewer resources and less bandwidth for long-term economic strategy — just as the need for it intensifies.
4. All of this sits inside wider global and national poly-crises and radical system change
Geopolitics, supply chains, climate shocks, fiscal constraint, and polarisation are reshaping the context in which places operate. We illustrated this with a rare LED Confidential visit to Greenland in this January espresso. And we have explored how the underlying principles of planning and managing change are radically shifting — most recently in our episodes on energy and water.
5. Five-party politics, NOC councils, and DNVs — our new political economy normals
So, finally, to the May 7th results — and how they increase, rather than resolve, these tensions.
England is now in a period of volatile five-party politics. Labour, Conservative, LibDem, Green, and Reform each secured between 14% and 27% voter share. Of the 136 councils voting, around 51 changed political control, with 62 now sitting under No Overall Control. Labour lost 36 councils and almost 1,200 councillors. Reform won 14 councils, including a landslide in Sunderland — where they went from zero seats to 58 in a single night, ending 52 years of Labour control. The Greens won their first elected mayors and five councils. The Liberal Democrats made quiet gains across the south.
LED teams are now working in a world where party mandates will be thinner, coalitions are looser, and political sponsorship is more contingent. Strategies and financial resources have to be built for churn, negotiation, and cross-party legitimacy. This isn't a temporary blip — it's the new baseline.
The differences between places, and between different party configurations within places, matter more than ever. Our espressos on Reform and the Greens delve into how these parties offer fundamentally different visions and assumptions for LED and placemaking. What happens in councils where both are present at scale (Bradford, Sheffield)? Or where neighbouring councils are controlled by one of each — Green Norwich in a Reform county, Reform Havering next to Green Waltham Forest?
The impact on MCA devolution progress is equally fraught. When we interviewed Henry Kippin, NECA CEO, he was the senior officer of a Labour mayorality with Labour majorities in almost all constituent councils. He woke up on May 8th with four Reform councils, two NOCs, and only one Labour council remaining. The same story is playing out in West Yorkshire, where Reform has taken three and perhaps four of five councils. And the questions hang in the air: what happens to both MCA and LGR ambitions in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex — now Reform-controlled counties?
With the Prime Minister under pressure to respond to these setbacks or even to be replaced, the issues surely presage a period of increasing government turmoil, uncertainty and policy change. And, if England's complexity wasn't enough, Nationalist parties now lead government in all three devolved nations — for the first time ever.
One final point that deserves to be said plainly. England-wide, average turnout was around one third. The 'Did Not Votes' (DNVs) outnumber any of the five major parties — and possibly the nationalists too. That is a political economy built on thin mandates, fragile legitimacy, and highly uneven participation. These are exactly the conditions that make LED harder, more relational, and more contested – especially for inclusive growth and net zero.
Put all of this together and you get something that feels a lot like my moment in the cinema: a story whose trajectory is unclear, whose tools feel inadequate, and whose happy ending is far from certain — but where the drama is absolutely guaranteed.
We're designing the next season of LED Confidential around these fault lines. Which of these challenges feels most acute where you are? What are we missing? And what should LED Confidential explore next?
Because if we're going to find a happy ending for ‘LED on the edge’, we need the whole LED and placemaking community in the room.
Further LEDC listening:
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