By Laura Bridges, Director, 31ten

The recent pause to Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) may feel like a moment to stand still. But the case for growth in your area hasn’t paused with it. The pressures on housing, regeneration, infrastructure, social care and local economies haven’t gone away, and neither has the ambition you’ve already built to address them.

Over recent months, many councils have invested significant time and resources in building a robust evidence base for their place, in developing deeper understanding of strengths and weaknesses, its competitive advantage, and its gaps and constraints – and in identifying strategic priorities for growth. That work doesn’t lose its value because the structural picture has changed. If anything, it becomes more important.

In this blog, written by our Director and LGR lead Laura Bridges, Laura advocates that the question isn’t whether to keep working towards growth – it’s how to get there.

Don’t let uncertainty become inertia

It’s understandable that uncertainty about future structures creates hesitation – it can feel safer to defer big decisions until the picture is clearer. But left unmanaged, that pause can drift into inertia, and inertia has a cost: it slows investment, unsettles partners, customers and staff, and erodes the confidence you need to deliver growth.

The alternative is to treat this as a period of consolidation – strengthening the foundations of your growth ambitions so you’re ready to move quickly and with confidence, whatever shape the future authority takes.

Set against a wider shift in power

The LGR pause also sits within a much bigger story: the Government’s ‘Rewiring the State’ agenda, which sets out its intent to shift power, funding and accountability from Whitehall to local leaders — including greater business rates retention, a local income tax share for mayors, and new Good Growth Funds backed by pension schemes and public financial institutions.

It’s clear that the future direction gives local areas more responsibility, but also more opportunity, for financing their own growth and investment.

Case study in focus: Establishing a Smart Local Energy Fund for Ambition North Wales

Ambition North Wales, a public-private sector partnership covering six local authorities, focuses on fostering economic growth and job creation in the North Wales region. To support the growth of the clean energy sector in the region, ANW sought to establish a £25m Smart Local Energy Investment fund, and 31ten supported ANW with this work. Read about the project in full here.

That has real implications now. A ‘devolve by default’ approach means local leaders will be expected to identify, prioritise and make the case for investment, regardless of LGR’s pace. The areas best placed to benefit will be those with a clear, evidenced pipeline of growth priorities ready to deploy. Momentum on identifying and progressing your growth ambitions now is, in effect, preparation for a landscape where local areas are expected to do more of the financing and delivery themselves.

Case study in focus: Helping Oxfordshire unlock investment for a just transition to net zero and nature recovery

Oxfordshire’s ambitious goals to become a net zero and nature-positive economy requires significant levels of investment – estimated at £3.4 billion for net zero and £800 million for nature recovery by 2030. 31ten worked with the Council, Enterprising Oxfordshire and partners, to develop a prospectus to market their vision for a sustainable future and catalyse funding and investment into Oxfordshire’s green economy. Read about the project in full here.

Build on what you’ve already done

It’s important to remember that the hard work of identifying priorities, engaging stakeholders and shaping a vision for growth has already been progressed. The task now is to build on that foundation rather than let it sit unused.

That means keeping your priorities alive: testing them, refining them, and making sure they still reflect the opportunities in front of you. It means protecting the institutional knowledge and relationships built up through that process, so they aren’t lost to changes in structure or personnel. If you translate that ambition into a pipeline of deliverable projects, growth priorities won’t just stay as aspirations on a page.

Bring partners together, now

Growth is rarely delivered by a single organisation acting alone. It depends on convening the right partners – combined authorities, neighbouring councils, investors, developers, anchor institutions, businesses and communities – around a shared understanding of opportunity.

This pause is, in some ways, a good moment to do it. With the pressure of a live reorganisation process eased, there’s space to bring partners together and consider what growth could look like across a place, beyond any one organisation’s boundaries.

Discussion with senior leaders from local government at our recent LGR roundtable reinforced this; the areas that make the most of reorganisation use it to convene, align and prioritise – moving from broad aspiration towards a shared pipeline of projects partners are genuinely invested in delivering.

Use the time you have now to strengthen relationships and sharpen a shared understanding. It will pay off whatever the eventual geography or governance looks like.

From ambition to action

Keeping momentum doesn’t mean rushing decisions that depend on future structures, it means being deliberate about what you can progress now, so you’re not starting from a standing start when direction returns.

That could mean testing your growth priorities with partners, or strengthening the evidence base that supports them. And, it could mean turning to one of the most immediate levers available: your assets, and the role they can play in unlocking growth, regeneration and financial sustainability. My colleague, Bernie Lally, Principal Consultant at 31ten explores how you can establish your asset strategy and optimise your assets in this recent blog.

Final thoughts

What is really clear to me is that whilst LGR may be on pause, your ambition definitely doesn’t need to be.

As power, funding and accountability shift towards local leaders under Rewiring the State, the places that keep their growth ambitions moving now will be best placed to make the most of it.

Take a look at the recent work we’ve done with Ambition North Wales and Oxfordshire County Council and, if you would like to talk through how to keep momentum behind your growth priorities, get in touch.