Peter Hetherington

About Peter Hetherington

Peter Hetherington writes on community affairs and regeneration. He is the former regional affairs and northern editor of the Guardian, and is a board trustee of the Town and Country Planning Association. He recently led its work on Connecting Local Economies, supported by the LGA.

Localists vs statists: a phoney debate

2 August 2011 | Peter Hetherington

It’s wrong to counterpose localism to statism. Both are needed to ensure a truly effective planning system Read more

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Farewell green and pleasant land

27 June 2011 | Peter Hetherington

Forget ‘community plans’, it is big business that is set to gain from the weakening of local government’s planning role Read more

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Tory town hall trauma, by Peter Hetherington

11 February 2011 | Peter Hetherington

Senior Liberal Democrat councillors attacking the government’s financial onslaught on town halls should come as no surprise. Interviewing David Faulkner, LibDem leader of Newcastle City Council for last month’s Public Finance, it was quite clear that he was not only aghast at Eric Pickles’ onslaught on town halls, but close to rebellion. Ditto many others. And the subsequent limp and laboured defence of the coalition from a LibDem local government minister, Andrew Stunnell (a former senior councillor in both Cheshire and Stockport) will only add fuel to the looming revolt. Read more...

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Regional growth myths, by Peter Hetherington

2 November 2010 | Peter Hetherington

Sometimes a bald statement, born out of prejudice, misinformation or a scant reading of statistics and repeated frequently, becomes a ‘truth’, universally acknowledged and uncontestable. Read more...

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A reprieve for the regions? by Peter Hetherington

27 May 2010 | Peter Hetherington

Politicians of the right have never been entirely happy with regional policy in England since the Butskellite consensus of the 50s and early 60s, when governments of red and blue dished out vast sums to deliver new industries to the north and Scotland: car plants to Merseyside, and Clydeside, steel works to South Wales and Lanarkshire, and so on. Read more...

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A big local difficulty, by Peter Hetherington

22 April 2010 | Peter Hetherington

The major parties promise more local power, but what they mean is devolution to the community, not councils. Either way, the localism debate has been reignited Read more...

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Mothers of invention, by Peter Hetherington

10 September 2009 | Peter Hetherington

Essex leader Lord Hanningfield’s call for the power to set local benefits is just one of the radical ideas local government is throwing up Read more...

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Keeping an eye on the second house

22 May 2009 | Peter Hetherington

Earlier this year, as the furore over parliamentary expenses was gaining momentum, I visited one of a diminishing number of MPs who can still claim a working-class background. Read more

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Not an urban myth

10 April 2009 | Peter Hetherington

For those children of Thatcherism fed on a diet of red-blooded capitalism, civic entrepreneurship — indeed, anything reeking of public sector initiative — was seen as an oxymoron. Read more

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Not so tough at the top

28 November 2008 | Peter Hetherington

Invoking yet again the late environment secretary Anthony Crosland’s warning to the nation in 1975, one of the larger management consultancies specialising in local government cautioned this week: ‘The party is finally over.’ Read more

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