Our submissions to Budget 2021 and CSR set out a roadmap for recovery and contained a range of practical recommendations.

We pressed the case for investment in local government as the pandemic continued to devastate city finances. We set out these arguments in our budget submission. Our city finance leads wrote to Government expressing their concerns on about the future sustainability of local government finance.

We held a number of events bringing key stakeholders together to talk about the value of cities and recovery. Our summit in July featured contributions from CBI, London School of Economics and Britain in a Changing Europe. We held successful events at Labour, Liberal Democrat and SNP Party Conferences.

We were vocal on the issue of regional lockdowns, with our leaders and mayors appearing on national news outlets to make the case for more local input and decision makers. We published a paper to Government outlining our approach to the lifting of restrictions in November.

We continued to position ourselves as 'thought leaders' on devolution and urban issues, providing speakers for events and podcasts on the future of cities. We met regularly with Westminster MPs and shadow ministers.