No doubt Milton Keynes' history as a new town has meant that it might not have faced the same development challenges as some other places, but there is a political will in place to support such development too. This isn't necessarily the case in some other cities.

I agree Robin - because they are attempting to limit competition, any short term gain to the business is likely to be outweighed by a long run productivity cost which harms the local economy, rather than supporting it. Like you say, I'm not convinced that it's the best area to be focusing resources.

Thanks John. I wouldn't dispute that local businesses could increase revenues, at least in the short term. That's why it is rational for them to want such a scheme because it restricts the competition that they face. The problem is that this could have a negative impact on productivity in the longer run, which would drag on standard of living improvements. Your ideas about having wider benefits attached to a scheme are interesting. The issue would be to balance any positives that this idea would have against the negatives of reduced productivity, reduced trade with outsiders and higher prices for consumers. I'm not sure how you could have an inflation free currency in this format. Unless Sterling inflation is 0, surely this is impossible?

We found a similar (stubborn) start up pattern across the UK's cities. And those areas that had stubbornly low business formation levels were current or former port cities: http://www.centreforcities.org/assets/files/10-01-22%20Enterprise%20note.pdf

It would be interesting to see if a similar relationship holds between manufacturing and services, particularly at a city level within a developed country. It could explain the divergence of performance within a country.