Current activities:

This includes some where the activity is finished but the outputs are relevant to current agendas. See also our timeline (pdf) outlining what we have achieved and other happenings over our ten year history.

• Mainstreaming Community Economic Development – research project funded by Barrow Cadbury Trust aimed at using localisation approaches to support inclusion, diversity and equality – reports available now. As part of this work we have been participating in Birmingham’s Social Inclusion Process.
• Course on Growing Low Carbon Communities recently finished
• TABLES project on integrating the ecosystems services approach into tools to improve decision-making - with Birmingham City University & partners (external link)
• Regional prosperity agenda:
  A Regionalised Prosperity and Inflation Framework
                Reform of the Bank of England
• Solving fuel poverty: opportunities from Green Deal & Localisation
• Fair Deal for UK farmers - taking part in a campaign for fairer prices for UK farmers.
• LEPs and Localisation – a localist evaluation of original LEP proposals in the West Midlands

See also our consultancy page and LWM 14001 consultancy site.

Recent and past projects:

• Instigating Birmingham Energy Savers, and West Midlands Green New Deal
• Green Deal Opportunities for Social Enterprise – funded by LEAF
• Managing environmental change in the rural urban fringe – research project with Birmingham City University & partners
• Extending Localisation
• Support for communities – Low Carbon Economy Programme
• Retail planning activities – with Planners Network UK
• Level 4 Courses on Local Food and Engaging Communities in Climate Change for Aston University’s Lifelong Learning Centre
• Community Land Trust training – and Digbeth CLT – 2011
• Sustainability and Resilience for Herefordshire – planning workshops 2011
• Birmingham Procurement 2009-9 – the Sustainable Procurement Compact
  
• Report back from the TUC’s Beyond Crisis conference 2009
• Decentralised Energy for Birmingham 2007
• Retail: report on Shirley proposals 2006
• Local finance for social housing 2004
• Earlier LWM activities

Summary

LWM undertakes the following sorts of work on localisation:

• Provide and publicise information, ideas and examples of good practice
• Facilitate or undertake demonstration projects
• Provide consultancy and other support to groups who are developing localist approaches
• Create supportive networks for localist action
• Challenge the barriers to localisation
• Link with similar projects outside the region and worldwide

Our work fits mainly into the following five themes:

Regeneration – Working with communities to develop solutions to local needs that use local resources. LWM chaired the Eastside Sustainability Advisory Group for some years.

Local food, local production and supply chains – aiming to catalyse an essential shift from the niche status of local food to become part of mainstream supply, particularly through public procurement and regional support activities.

Retail – supporting independent retail in accessible local centres, and developing tools for strengthening local shopping; combating food and service ‘deserts’; and localising supply chain links.

Energy – looking at the feasibility of more decentralised energy networks to combat economic, peak oil and climate change issues.

Housing and Finance – Working with tenant organisations and housing providers to promote local management and financing for social housing; supporting the development of localised mechanisms to provide sustainable, stable financing that benefits real people.