Action Briefing Feb 2003 - Mar 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Livin' La Vida Local: Localise West Midlands

Guest Article: Ex-Birmingham FoE Daytime Campaigner Karen Leach, now at the helm of Localise West Midlands, reports on the organisation's progress to date.

As some of you will know I started working for and setting up Localise West Midlands in October last year.
Our main raison d’etre is to help strengthen local economies. There are two main parts to this: (1) influencing policy towards a “localist” economic agenda - this means meeting the region’s needs within the region as far as possible, resulting in less transport and more local control; and (2) actual practical work to help consumers and producers to make local links.

Many people are already working on the practical side, and there is even support from regional government for work that could be considered localist; but most of these schemes are seen as marginal - worthwhile, but secondary to the usual economic priorities of “inward investment” and global money flow. LWM’s significant difference is that we are working towards the local economy being the mainstream of regional economic policy.

Since October, apart from the general activity of setting up an organisation, we have been starting to set up a public procurement conference to share information on how local authorities can buy local food for schools and hospitals. This has many benefits. The most obvious one to local and regional authorities themselves is that food can be fresher and high quality if supplied locally, but it’s interesting that those involved in local procurement actively want to use local suppliers, not for altruistic reasons but because they find it more convenient, and much better in terms of the relationships they can build up with suppliers - which make business so much more reliable in the longer term.

Meanwhile, public procurement is a fairly hefty slice of food trade generally, and if local procurement becomes the norm in the UK this will start a major shift in food trade towards the local. We’re hoping this conference will actually be happening some time this spring.

But although food is a good staring point that everyone understands, localisation work should not end with food. LWM hopes at some stage to be able to start a Birmingham Food Links organisation to take care of localisation of this sector so that we can move on to new areas such as waste or resources, energy generation and biofuels.

We have also been involved in FOE’s corporate globalisation roadshow, giving a talk on local food and the consequences of global trade in the Warehouse Cafe, and running a workshop on Localise West Midlands.

All over Christmas I was telling friends and relations (as you do) about my new job. Interestingly the reactions are just as positive whether I’m talking to someone working in big business or a housewife who misses the local shops. Localisation is an idea that makes sense to everyone.

Many thanks to Birmingham FOE and to James Friel of BEN for their support while we have been setting up. We hope to be standing on our own however-many feet before too long.

Karen Leach