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This article considers the potential of public–common partnerships (PCPs) to act as a new municipalist intervention against the privatisation and financialisation of land in the UK. In previous publications, we have presented PCPs in abstract terms as a municipalist organisational form that could help communities eschew the disciplinary effects of finance capital to pursue alternative democratic forms of urban development. Here, we start to examine what this process looks like in practice. The article draws from ongoing participatory action research in two contrasting case studies, Wards Corner in Haringey and Union Street in Plymouth. We find that by establishing enduring organisational structures where collective decisions can be made about who owns and manages land and assets, PCPs could bolster already existing efforts to democratise urban development in both cities. As an organisational form, PCPs reframe the ‘local’ as a politics of proximity, decentre and reimagine the role of municipal institutions and foreground a politics of the common. This makes them an archetypal new municipalist strategy, well-suited to contesting the enclosure of urban landscapes. The article concludes by considering the development of PCPs within the broader new municipalist tendency.

This report was produced in November 2022 as part of research undertaken by the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD) as part of its ESRC Centre research programme. Fifteen remote interviews were conducted in English or Welsh (depending on the participant’s choice) by three researchers (Dr Beel, Prof IR Jones, Dr Russell). A range of potential participants were identified in dialogue with Alwen Williams the Programme Director of the North Wales Growth Deal (NWGD), from which we sampled a cross-section of interviewees, supplemented by interviews with a small number of political leaders. Whilst the interviewees will remain anonymous, they included: lead officers for economy, regeneration and development, local authority chief executives, NWGD team members, chief executives/managing director of NWGD partners, and local authority leaders. The interviews were supplemented with a limited review of reports and minutes associated with the NWGD. The interview schedule had been co-developed with members of the NWGD team and were conducted with a semi-structured approach. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using qualitative data processing software (NVivo). Interview transcripts can be made available on request by interviewees. These interviews were conducted as part of a wider research project focused on the role of regional economic development policy in supporting the strengthening of the Foundational Economy. The research was given ethical approval by the Cardiff University School of Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee (Reference Number: SREC/4077)