11. Civic Financialisation: Financing the Northern Powerhouse

This chapter examines how the Northern Powerhouse agenda will be financed, in part, through the Government’s Business Rate Scheme (BRRS). It begins with a brief summary of local government finance in England, describing the transference from a centralised model to one based on the parallel rubrics of localism and local economic growth. The central findings are structured around three interrelated themes: liability and growth potential, demand divergence, and the nature of local commercial property markets. It concludes that the BRRS has begun to roll out the conditions that will provoke parts of the Northern Powerhouse to enter an era of civic financialisation and entrepreneurial activity. However, asymmetries between commercial property markets, economic conditions and welfare need could result in a defined set of winners and losers—those that can take part in autonomous civic financialisation and those that remain reliant on a system of redistribution and equalisation.