West Midlands Futures Green Paper - Consultation
Open Consultation
Published: 30 April 2025
Summary
The purpose of the West Midlands Futures Green Paper is to support a conversation across the West Midlands about our long-term strategic priorities as we embark on a ten-year programme of regional transformation to unlock inclusive growth and increase our residents’ living standards.
The consultation closes at 11.59pm on Sunday 8 June 2025.
Consultation Description
The West Midlands has strong and distinctive foundations for inclusive economic growth—our scale, demography, connectivity, investment and innovation records and connectivity—and is changing. Amidst external changes, emerging opportunities and following nearly ten years of devolution, now is the right time to be crystal clear about what our challenges and opportunities are, what we need to prioritise in order to address them and the levers we will pull together—as a region—to increase residents’ living standards.
Over the past year, the West Midlands Combined Authority has been engaging with our partner organisations and bringing together the evidence, building towards a conversation—the West Midlands Futures Green Paper—about what we want the future to look like and how we will approach the changes on the horizon.
We now want to know what our stakeholders think about change. It is essential that as our future plans are developed, they are informed by the experiences of the individuals, businesses and local communities they are being designed to support.
This Green Paper sets out four big areas of change on the horizon and how regional stakeholders—led by the WMCA—are beginning to respond to them. The golden thread that runs right through it is growth. In each area, we are asking a handful of questions. We want to know your opinions about the direction of travel and how we seize the many opportunities we have before us.
Who is it for?
The Green Paper is for everyone who has a shared stake and role in the West Midlands’ economic transformation: local government, universities, colleges and schools, businesses and private sector organisations, investors, central government, key public services, utilities and community organisations and our citizens themselves.
Together, we will marshal our collective resources and capabilities to sustain economic transformation at scale. The WMCA has a leadership role in convening and investing in transformation, but in lockstep with our partners.
How to take part
Please email: WMF@wmca.org.uk
Write to:
West Midlands Futures,
West Midlands Combined Authority,
16 Summer Lane,
Birmingham,
B19 3SD
Attend an online event (see below)
Online events (2025)
Please see below a list of online events. All online events will be held on Microsoft Teams. Please click on the link in the relevant webinar(s) to reserve your space. We'll send out the link the day before the event is scheduled.
Watch now - Economic Growth & the West Midlands Growth Plan
We will talk about economic growth and the development of our West Midlands Growth Plan (Chapter 1). Questions 1 to 8 and 12 to 13 relate to this webinar.
13th May (4-5pm)
This webinar will talk about Places and the Spatial Development Strategy (Chapter 2). Questions 14 to 18 relate to this webinar.
20th May (12-1pm)
This webinar will talk about Public Service Innovation (Chapter 3) and People and Skills (Chapter 1). Questions 19 and 9 to 11 relate to this webinar.
4th June (12-1pm)
This webinar will talk about our Second Net Zero Five Year Plan. Question 20 relates to this webinar.
Accessible formats
If you require the green paper in another format, please email wmf@wmca.org.uk.