BRIEFING By Alex Jan
Alexander Jan is chief economist at Arup.
3 Where will the money come from? Local government funding has taken a 60% hit over the last decade. Economist Alexander Jan looks at how can the landscape sector can innovate to find finance for projects, and what issues – and opportunities – other sources of funding create.
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or many who work to improve the urban and natural environment in Britain, it’s been a torrid time. The financial crisis of 2008 precipitated austerity. The government aimed to eliminate the use of public borrowing to pay for day-to-day services. Because of sluggish economic growth and, at times, lower than expected tax receipts, that process is taking longer to achieve than was anticipated. More recently, things have been aggravated by uncertainty associated with Brexit. The British economy has not recovered to its pre-2008 trend levels of growth which, in turn, has reduced tax yields. To make matters worse, austerity has been skewed. Healthcare and pensions expenditure have largely been protected whilst other parts of the public sector have seen disproportionately large reductions. The NHS in England experienced a real-terms cash increase of nearly 13% between 2009/10 and 2018/19. But total funding for local government sees 16
a corresponding reduction of 60% over a similar period – between 2010/11 and 2019/20. Spending on things such as the public realm – trees, streets and parks – have borne the brunt of cuts, as councils have done their best to protect statutory service provision for the elderly, children and other vulnerable groups.
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So austerity presents real challenges to those professions and sectors that have traditionally been funded from the public purse. But, alongside some painful choices as to where to allocate increasingly scarce resources, it has perhaps stimulated public players to look to more innovative, efficient delivery
The UK now finds itself at the forefront of new and innovative ways to deliver improvements to green and public spaces.
