Making Local Economies Work for Communities
For the final session of the Winter Seminar Series, we were joined by Neil McInroy — economist, activist, and global lead for community wealth at the Democracy Collaborative. Neil lives just outside Oban, and his connection to Argyll runs deep. That combination of international perspective and genuine local rootedness set the tone for a wide-ranging session.
Wealth and health
Neil’s central argument was that if we want to tackle ill health, we need to be talking about wealth. The economy, he argued, produces ill health — and treating its effects without addressing its causes is both costly and insufficient. Community wealth building asks us to go upstream: past the hospital, past the GP, to the economic conditions of ill health that make people economically insecure affecting wider wellbeing.
He used a local example to bring this to life: compare a locally-owned cafe in Campbeltown with a Starbucks. The local business employs local people, sources from local suppliers, and its owners reinvest their profits locally. Every point in the supply chain where ownership is local, wealth sticks. Research suggests £100 spent at a local independent business generates around £45 in further local spend, compared to £14 at a national chain. That is 220% more value to the local economy.
Reform, revolution — or something else?
Community wealth building is neither revolution nor incremental tinkering. Drawing on political theory, Neil described it as “evolutionary reconstruction” — reform designed to be catalytic, change from within the system that has real hooks. Like yellow rattle planted in a meadow: one small thing that changes the conditions so other things can grow.
He outlined five streams through which this works: good and fair work; local procurement; democratic ownership models such as co-ops and development trusts; community finance; and land and property in local hands. Cutting across all five is the role of anchor institutions — the large public bodies(such as health boards, councils, colleges and universities) that together account for around half of local economic activity, and whose spending decisions shape whether wealth circulates or drains away.
The conversation in Argyll and Bute
Takki Sulaiman from Argyll and Bute TSI joined Neil to describe what is already happening locally. A community wealth building report had produced 23 recommendations across the five pillars. Rather than waiting for the new Community Wealth Building Act, a steering group began working through them immediately — and in November, Argyll and Bute Council approved a community wealth building charter ahead of legislation. Procurement emerged as the clearest near-term priority: the quickest route to changing how money moves.
The discussion that followed was honest and wide-ranging. Participants from Coll, Glenlonan, and Helensburgh brought the theory into sharp relief — a community-owned hydro scheme unable to pass cheaper power to local residents; land owned by a London investment company sitting derelict in the middle of town; bureaucratic structures that work against the very circular economies they are meant to support. These were not abstract concerns. They were the lived texture of a rural, island economy where much of the wealth is owned elsewhere.
There were honest questions too — about the guidance being written for the new Act, and whether it will reflect the complexity of places like Argyll and Bute. Neil was frank that this is the next fight. But the door, he argued, is open — and the new legislation opens the door wide ajar for a new type of economy, where wealth and economic activity serves us, the people and communities. CWB also gives communities a legitimate claim to be at the table when decisions and action on local, regional and national economic development are made and progressed
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