CWB in the News
Corbynomics would change Britain, The Economist, May 17th 2018
‘Labour therefore proposes a different sort of public ownership. Local authorities, trade unions and workers, all of whom are seen as more responsive than expert panels to local needs, would play a greater role in the management of services.’
Preston named as most improved city in UK, The Guardian, November 1st 2018
‘Preston, the Lancastrian city labelled as a poster child for “Corbynomics,” has been named as the most rapidly improving urban area in the UK to live and work.’
In 2011 Preston hit rock bottom. Then it took back control, The Guardian, January 31st 2018
Where other authorities privatise, Preston grows its own businesses. It even creates worker-owned co-operatives. Now Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn praises Preston for its “inspiring innovation”.
The Road to Socialism is the A59: The Preston Model, Renewal, 2016
[T]here’s all this wealth which is localised, and when you create new opportunities to localise and democratise that wealth, then you really are creating the economy where the community decide on their own economic destiny.
The ‘Preston Model’ and the modern politics of municipal socialism, openDemocracy, June 12th 2018
Community wealth building is a local economic development strategy focused on building collaborative, inclusive, sustainable, and democratically controlled local economies. Instead of traditional economic development through public-private partnerships and private finance initiatives, which waste billions to subsidize the extraction of profits by footloose corporations with no loyalty to local communities, community wealth building supports democratic collective ownership of—and participation in—the economy through a range of institutional forms and initiatives. These include worker co-operatives, community land trusts, community development finance institutions, so-called ‘anchor’ procurement strategies, municipal and local public enterprise, participatory planning and budgeting, and—increasingly, it is to be hoped—public banking. Community wealth building is economic system change, but starting at the local level.