...comes from Michael Heseltine as the government prepares to launch its urban white paper. Speaking to epxNews, he commented:

"I would like to see, first of all, directly elected chief executives for the unitary local authorities, because this country is desperately over-centralised and in order to give a real sharp focus to the problems of individual communities I think that someone with the executive responsibility that is publicly identifiable would be a major constitutional reform.

"Other than that, the basis of the policies that need to be pursued are those of encouraging a climate of opportunity in the more rundown areas, the less prosperous areas, which will attract the private sector and by that I mean homeowners and people who have small businesses, to invest there and to live there. What you are trying to do is to balance the communities, to ensure that you haven't got a monolithic rather elderly, rather unskilled community, from which anyone who has the resource, and that basically means money and skills, seeks to escape.

"The important thing is to understand the philosophy, to understand what you are trying to do is to make those areas competitive with the suburbs."