Witten by Orla McCann, WEAll England Hub, Unlimited Potential
A vision for a fairer, greener and healthier economy
Salford, in Greater Manchester, has a vision for a fairer, greener and healthier economy and so in 2022, a journey of economic transformation began with the Economies for Healthier Lives programme funded by The Health Foundation.
With the fastest growing economy in north-west England, and several major developments in the city and multiple town centre regeneration projects underway, Salford’s old image of a declining, post-industrial city is fading away.
Whilst economic opportunity is welcomed, the wider picture of inequalities in health and wealth has worsened. There is a ten-year difference in life expectancy in different parts of the city and the low-wealth areas are not significantly benefitting from the developments and regeneration taking place.
A hopeful, prosperous and healthy future for our children and future generations depends on the conditions that we create now. For the past three years, Salford has taken on this challenge and tested its own approach to achieving an economy that is fairer, greener and healthier.
Our approach
Using the principles of community wealth building, we focused on control and ownership aspects of the economy. We worked with local people from low-wealth areas of Salford to produce collective economic solutions that shift ownership and control into their hands. We supported local young adults towards creating new social and co-operative businesses that could become new suppliers to the local anchor institutions, thus shifting the money they spend and utilising their economic footprint in a way that will benefit the people and place in which they are rooted.
At the same time, the Salford Local Anchors Network was established, involving local anchor institutions from the private, public and social sectors. We analysed their supply chain expenditure. With the local anchor institutions, we identified local markets worth millions of pounds, such as catering, grounds and facilities maintenance, transport and care, in which social and co-operative businesses could operate.
Earlier this year, using co-production, we supported local people to set up a catering social enterprise. This opportunity was born from a market analysis exercise where we worked with six of the largest organisations in Salford to assess their annual spend in various areas. The group matched this with their strengths, skills and interests and felt a viable social business could be possible. A strength to this approach is the connection to local assets and resources and, in our case, this resulted in a space becoming available for the catering enterprise to use as a kitchen and café to the public, as well as the catering customers.
Our impact
Whilst this social enterprise is operating, building its customer base and providing a hopeful future for its local owners, it is important to note that the process of getting to this point is challenging, especially for those from low-wealth areas and limited access to financial resources or a support network. We need changes to the current system so that everyone can participate in the economy in a fair and inclusive way and live a prosperous and healthy life. Salford is working towards its long-term vision of an inclusive economy by embedding these approaches into policy and strategy to create the conditions required for this approach to flourish.
We are diversifying who is engaging with economic development. Local people are forming a key part of the solution to a healthier economy.
We are seeing greater collaboration between economic development and public health. Economic development colleagues are now thinking about public health in regeneration plans – the work through Economies for Healthier Lives has resulted in spin-off projects like Reimagining the Purpose of Town Centres, economics within a child-friendly city, and influencing the Live Well approach across Greater Manchester.
To achieve a truly inclusive economy requires policy change. In 2024, Salford City Council included in its new Corporate Plan a commitment to work with the city’s other anchor institutions to ensure every pound they spend in Salford is maximised for local benefit, and a commitment to increase the amount of money spent with local SMEs and social businesses to support the wider growth of the social economy in the city.
We have been working with Salford City Council through this process to share the learning from this approach and inspire the inclusion of community wealth building and co-production with local people in the Locality Plan for health and well-being and in the Salford Way strategy to tackle inequalities, both of which are due to be refreshed and published in coming months.
Further reading
If you are interested in other examples of positive ownership and governance, take a look at WEAll’s blog on The Business of Wellbeing, which shares more case studies of impact on how we can do things differently.
Visit our web page to access more resources that we have created on this subject including: our grower’s guide to nurturing an inclusive and green economy, the Rooting for a Healthy Economy animation and more.
Author: Orla McCann, Unlimited Potential
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