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Personal insolvency rates vary considerably across local areas of England and Wales but the reasons for this have barely been explored. This paper presents an empirical study of the factors determining variations in personal insolvency rates in 2006 utilising newly available data. The results suggest that a number of economic and demographic factors are important including income, social benefits, age, occupation, public-sector and armed forces employment and level of local entrepreneurship. Significant spatial autocorrelation is evident in the dataset and three sub-regional clusters of local authorities are identified; one in the South West is characterised by adjacent areas with a high insolvency rate and two others in Wales and the North West that are characterised by low insolvency rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the impacts of the 2008 global financial crisis on Leeds, a medium sized city in northern England, which in the last decades has specialised in finance-related economic activities. Our aim is to understand if the largely neoliberal pre-crisis urban growth model pursued in Leeds, based significantly on real estate speculation, retail and finance, was put at risk by the crisis and whether a collective reflection by local leaders took place about the need to change direction. To do that we have conducted interviews with experts in the city and analysed policy documents in detail. We focus, in particular, on how the crisis was constructed as affecting Leeds and more specifically if the socio-economic development trajectory and associated urban governance model have changed. We conclude that there has been little reflection and questioning of the underlying principles of the urban growth and governance model in Leeds. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the operation of the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder Programme in England over the period 2002–10. The programme aimed to address high vacancy rates and low house prices in inner-city and declining industrial areas of northern and Midlands cities. The programme achieved some success in generating new housing supply in areas where private developers had previously been reluctant to invest, but had only limited impacts on high vacancy rates. House prices rose sharply in the programme areas, but also in similar areas outside the scope of the programme, driven by wider market-led pressures, including increased demand arising from international in-migration and a boom in speculative investment. With a change in government in 2010, the programme was abruptly wound up and the future of the programme areas is uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From 2001, the construction of flats and high-density developments increased in England and the building of houses declined. Does this indicate a change in taste or is it a result of government planning policies? In this paper, an analysis is made of the long-term effects of the policy of constraint which has existed for the past 50 years but the increase in density is identified as occurring primarily after new, revised, planning guidance was issued in England in 2000 which discouraged low-density development. To substantiate this, it is pointed out that the change which occurred in England did not occur in Scotland where guidance was not changed to encourage high-density residential development. The conclusion that the change is the result of planning policies and not of a change in taste is confirmed by surveys of the occupants of new high-rise developments in Leeds. The new flat-dwellers were predominantly young and childless and expressed the intention, in the near future, when they could, of moving out of the city centre and into houses. From recent changes in guidance by the new coalition government, it is expected that the construction of flats in England will fall back to earlier levels over the next few years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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