Introduction

The deployment of fairness within the discourse of local government implies that this concept has both political value and practical effect, and yet the complexities of and constraints on local government suggest that governing fairly is unlikely to be straightforward. Fairness in Newcastle entails the overlaying of a particular framework of principles onto established practices for governing locally. This chapter deals with two questions which arise from this:

These questions are pursued through a case study of an approach to on-the-fly policy making, which raises difficult questions about what fairness means in practice and in the context of competing priorities. The events discussed took place partly prior to the discussions around fairness in Newcastle, although they raise issues around the fair stewardship of neighbourhoods, which have still not been addressed three years on from the publication of the Fairness Commission report.

This chapter makes three arguments in response to the questions above. First, it is argued that the Elswick area, in which the case study is based, suffers from inequalities of policy protection, which have been highlighted by residents but unfortunately still remain in spite of the work of the Fairness Commission. Second, the chapter argues that the potential consequences of these inequalities are exacerbated by a history of unfair treatment that has been felt by the residents of Elswick and should be taken into account in discussions about how to promote fairness in the future. Finally, it is argued that these inequalities of policy protection and historical treatment can be explained to a large extent by the institutional context that has shaped the approach to neighbourhood management in Elswick, and that this attention to the culture of local government is a blind spot in the way Newcastle has approached fairness. To make these arguments, this chapter begins by providing a contextual description of local politics in the city and a discussion about how fairness is understood within the headline statements of aspiration of the two local parties. The chapter's argument is then situated within established critiques of liberal approaches to fairness, before turning to the case example and finally to the wider issues it illustrates.