Late last year the hopes for a new municipal politics in the UK took a blow as two progressive local authorities made some less-than-progressive decisions. The first involved the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, who a year before had seemed poised to establish its own local energy company.
Following the successful 2017 election of Andy Burnham as the first Mayor of Greater Manchester, a plan was made to establish a GM Energy Company to provide affordable power to residents, reduce carbon emissions, and invest money back in the community. With public ownership of services ever-popular with the public (according to a 2017 poll by the Legatum Institute, 77% of the public support the public ownership of energy), the idea arguably helped Burnham win the mayorship. But by late 2018, the Combined Authority had hired an outside consulting firm who reasoned against a public energy company, citing the potential economic and political risk. As the year drew to a close it seemed clear that Greater Manchester will be focusing on a much less ambitious “Energy Innovation Company”.
As of yet, there has been no observable progress as to what this may entail (and no publicly available minutes to substantially address the issue for the past six months), casting serious doubt that the eventual outcome will represent any form of economic democracy or participatory governance.
