Research & Analysis Manager, Centre for Thriving Places, formerly of @greatermcr, @sipherc @aberdeenshire, all views belong to me (just as well then).
Joined June 2021
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72 Photos and videos
Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
25 Mar 2025
This is wild. Announcing changes to the PIP assessment with little rationale beyond saving £5bn, which is downgraded to £3.4bn by the OBR, then scrambling around to make further cuts to help meet fiscal rules based targets. None of this is being led by evidence or people's needs
25 Mar 2025
Exclusive with @Smyth_Chris
Rachel Reeves will announce further welfare cuts after the Office for Budget Responsibility told ministers their benefit reforms will save £1.6billion less than planned
The OBR rejected ministers' £5billion welfare savings estimate, putting it at £3.4billion
Reeves will announce that Universal Credit incapacity benefits for new claimants, which were halved in Kendall's original package, will now be frozen until 2030 as well rather than rising in line with inflation
There will also be a small reduction in the basic rate of UC in 2029
The moves will raise an extra £500milloon
Govt source says that the new cuts are in keeping with green paper
thetimes.com/article/f80da8c…
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
19 Mar 2025
💥BIG NEWS💥
Here's your full lineup for Festival of Debate 2025! 🎉
Join us in Sheffield for the UK's biggest politics festival, with more than 50 events exploring responses to some of the most urgent issues of our time
Discover the programme ➡️ festivalofdebate.com
#FofD
ALT A poster for the Festival of Debate, showing the logo of the festival, the dates 22 April – 30 May 2025, and dozens of names of people and groups hosting events. At the bottom of the festival are the logos of the sponsors: Learn Sheffield, Lankelly Chase, the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, Sheffield City Council, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
19 Mar 2025
🚭The North of England lags behind on so many health measures but here's some good news...
Smoking rates have fallen faster in the North than the national average, meaning they're now lower than down South
New study out from @CR_UK and @ucl today
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
3 Mar 2025
This week is National #EmptyHomesWeek 🏚️
We’re working hard to reduce empty properties and increase the supply of affordable housing in our city.
If you own an empty property we can offer advice and support to bring the empty property back into use.
👇
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
On average, SUVs burn 20% more fuel than regular cars. They're not just eating up space - they're eating up our planet too. It's time to think smarter, and smaller.
Join us in tackling #carspreading and tag us in your worst SUV moments. More info at cleancitiescampaign.org/cars…
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
10 Feb 2025
how it started how it's going
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
10 Feb 2025
Big news for Cumbria from Number 10 today...
Ex-Cabinet Secretary Simon Case will be the chair of the Barrow Delivery Board, which manages the £200m fund to transform the town (where nuclear submarines are being built)
He stood down as the head of the Civil Service last year
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Rachel Reeve’s commitment to airport expansion is reliant on flawed economics. By the government’s own metrics, airport expansion will fail to deliver the type of growth they want.
29 Jan 2025
New runways are a mistake, we don’t need them. This is the old economy, it grew 0.1% last year while the green one grew 9% - this is where the biggest opportunity for growth is, and it’s sustainable in all senses of the word. That’s the right kind of growth.
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The government needs to explain the economic logic behind its decision on airport expansion - because the growth case for it just doesn't add up.
Alex Chapman spoke to the @Independent
independent.co.uk/news/busin…
ALT Text reads The government needs to explain how creating millions of flights carrying UK residents – mostly frequent flyers - abroad on holiday is going to help our economic security, said Dr Chapman. Encouraging households to spend their money overseas takes precious cash out of high streets and the domestic tourism economy in the UK’s wider regions, you might call it ‘anti-levelling-up’.
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
27 Jan 2025
And this is just the beginning.
78% of 18-34-year-olds in the UK believe a 4-day working week will become the norm in five years’ time.
But you don’t have to wait that long.
Whether you’re an employee or an employer, book a free consultation with us to get started. ⬇️
ALT Guardian headline - Two hundred UK companies sign up for permanent four-day working week
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New analysis: If four UK airport expansions including Heathrow are allowed to go ahead, they will cancel out the carbon savings of this government’s clean power plan IN JUST FIVE YEARS. This government must cancel these planned expansions.
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
21 Jan 2025
'People say it's not possible, it's a ridiculous target'
Here's why North East mayor @KiMcGuinness is sticking by her election promise to do nothing less than end child poverty in her region
She's speaking on The Northern Agenda's Our Kids In The North podcast:
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
19 Jan 2025
Dateline: Goodison. The elusive beer baron continues to thumb his nose at the authorities. Swaggering about in a garish new hat, he seemed to say, "Look at me, Rex Banner! I have a new hat!"
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
15 Jan 2025
This man has just made millions from thousands of bar workers grafting over Christmas and New Year on just above the minimum wage.
The same man who was sunning himself in the Maldives weeks before his company abandoned the real living wage.
#JamesWatt has absolutely no shame.
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
15 Jan 2025
New paper from Local Health & Global Profits researchers: Why didn’t the ‘critical juncture’ of the COVID-19 pandemic lead to the re-integration of public health into urban development policy in England? tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.… #phiuklhgp
ALT A screengrab of the abstract from the paper that can be read in the link.
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Doctor Fraser Bell retweeted
8 Jan 2025
astounding work, he Linkedin'ed his wife
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7 Jan 2025
The Furness Railway as I live and breathe!
6 Jan 2025
Wetherspoons are introducing a 'No drinking at the bar' policy. This is a means to better their service.
How do we all feel about it? 🤔
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