Covid-19 sub-regional economic recovery partnerships: Soft spaces of governance in action

This article contributes to the literature on the concept of soft spaces of governance. These are frequently described as open, informal, voluntary, flexible and effective governance spaces where there is increasing activity. This article’s novelty rests on new conceptual and empirical insights on the role of soft spaces of governance in the context of a shock event. It focuses on associated sub-regional economic recovery planning during the Covid-19 crisis and its immediate aftermath, drawing on evidence from 30 interviews with local government officials and stakeholders in two sub-regions in England: the West Midlands and North East. It fills a gap in scholarly debates on local economic development by examining and critically assessing key features of soft spaces – voluntarism, informality, complementarity, effectiveness and agency – and implications going forward. The findings indicate that soft spaces can come into their own at a time of crisis. They remove some barriers to formal partnership working in policy silos that are ill-suited to rapid multi-agency response by enabling the introduction of new partners from different policy domains and encouraging more innovative ways of working at pace at regional, local and community levels. They emphasise the key importance of individuals as crucial actors in how soft spaces work in practice, opening up more opportunity for agency – albeit not for accountability and legitimacy – in policymaking, with wider implications for local economic development at a time of withdrawal by the state from some policy areas where formerly it was active.