Last week Yorkshire Wildlife Trust joined community organisations in Bradford to meet Prime Minister Andy Burnham to discuss the future of our environment and the places people call home. 

While the immediate discussion centred on waste crime, environmental regulation and community concerns, the conversation quickly widened into something more fundamental: what enables places to thrive and how public institutions can work together to secure their future.

The timing felt significant. As colleague Matt Browne argues in his recent blog, devolution presents an opportunity to bring decision-making closer to the places affected by it. It offers the chance to recognise the contribution that nature can make to healthier, more prosperous communities, and there are practical opportunities that might emerge from that shift. 

I would like to add a regional perspective, drawn from my experience of devolution a decade ago and what it might mean for the next phase of England's journey. 

While media and others debate what powers move from Westminster to regions, for me the important question is: how can devolution help landscapes, cities, communities become more resilient, and are our institutions are equipped for the challenges they now face? 
 

Healthy natural systems enable good growth

Economic growth and environmental protection have often been framed as competing priorities for much of modern history. Increasingly, that distinction is unsustainable and out of touch with today’s reality.

The health of our rivers influences water security. The condition of our peatlands affects flooding, carbon storage and water quality. Productive soils underpin food production. Green spaces contribute to physical and mental wellbeing. Healthy ecosystems provide many of the services upon which households, businesses and public services depend every day.

When these systems come under pressure, the impacts are felt far beyond the natural environment. Costs rise, risks increase and we become more vulnerable to disruption and pressures at work, home and in travel.

This summer's droughts, heatwaves and wildfires have again demonstrated how closely our economic and social well-being is tied to the condition of the natural systems around us. Climate resilience, public health, food security and economic prosperity are becoming increasingly interconnected.

Discussions about good growth therefore need to begin with a recognition that healthy natural systems are not simply one of the outcomes we seek. They are part of the foundation on which long-term prosperity depends.
 

Devolution creates space for places to think longer term

My own interest in these questions stems from Cornwall's first Devolution Deal in 2015, which I worked on at Cornwall Council. Much of the debate was focused on powers, funding and immediate opportunities. Yet one of the less publicised elements of the deal focused on strategic resilience and how organisations with different responsibilities could work together to understand and prepare for long-term environmental risks following the damaging storms in 2013/14.

The starting point was straightforward. Cornwall's challenges could not be understood through national averages alone. Its geography, economy, landscapes and environmental risks were distinctive. Building resilience required local authorities, public agencies, regulators and communities to develop a shared understanding of place and a shared commitment to its future.

Looking back a decade later, the significance of that work lay less in any individual initiative than in the conditions it created. It encouraged organisations to think collectively about long-term risk and opportunity.  Resilience became increasingly embedded in conversations about climate adaptation, infrastructure, emergency planning and investment decisions.

I am therefore convinced that the value of devolution is not found solely in the powers that are transferred. Some of its most important effects come from creating the space for places to develop their own capacity for leadership, stewardship and long-term problem solving.
 

Regions are increasingly becoming the scale at which resilience must be organised

The relevance of this feels even greater today. The challenges facing Yorkshire differ from those facing Cornwall, Cumbria, Kent or Greater Manchester. Each region has its own geography, economy, water systems, natural assets and vulnerabilities. National government rightly sets direction and standards, but understanding how these factors interact is inherently place-based.

Across Yorkshire, we can already see the building blocks emerging. Work on climate adaptation, catchment management, peatland restoration, Local Nature Recovery Strategies and nature-based solutions is bringing together expertise from local authorities, businesses, farmers, environmental organisations and public agencies. 

The Yorkshire & Humber Climate Commission, Yorkshire Peat Partnership, catchment partnerships and other collaborative initiatives all demonstrate a growing recognition that many of our greatest challenges are connected.

That challenge is not a lack of ambition, evidence or activity. Government has already established substantial ambitions around climate adaptation, nature recovery, water resilience and food security. Equally, regions contain significant expertise and practical experience. The more crucial question is whether the ways we organise ourselves have kept pace with our understanding of the challenge.

Many of the outcomes we seek and need depend upon the same natural systems, yet decisions affecting those systems are often spread across organisations, sectors and funding programmes that were designed for different purposes at different times.  

Water, land, nature, climate adaptation, health and economic development are deeply connected in practice, even when they are considered separately in governance.

The next phase of devolution may therefore be less about developing entirely new environmental policies and more about exploring whether regions are equipped to steward the natural assets upon which their future prosperity depends. If government increasingly recognises water, food systems, natural resources and climate resilience as strategic national concerns, there may be value in considering how regional institutions can integrate their delivery more effectively. 

Some regions may choose to develop shared assessments of resilience risks, stronger mechanisms for collaboration, or new ways of aligning investment around long-term regional outcomes. The important point is not the specific model, but the recognition that stewardship matters as much as policy.
 

The next chapter

Successful devolution tends to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary and is one of the enduring lessons from Cornwall. Progress often comes not from creating entirely new structures but from helping existing organisations work together around shared ambitions and a common understanding of place. 

As England continues to shape its devolution agenda, there is an opportunity to ask how regions can become better equipped to build resilience alongside prosperity. This is not simply an environmental conversation. It is about how places prepare for uncertainty, manage long-term risks and create the conditions for communities and economies to flourish over future decades.

That feels like a conversation that is long overdue and is becoming increasingly critical.