The communities particularly vulnerable to communicable diseases have highlighted regional variations in the UK and across the world when challenged by the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, deemed to be a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020 (WHO, 2020). A complex interplay of factors has been proposed to explain these regional and geographic variations. Those include poor health status, nutritional status, cultural and ethnic practices, housing quality, and political factors related to the geopolitics of the region.

In the UK, high rates of infection have been found in the North East and North West of England and Scotland.

In the previous volume in this series, Local Authorities and the Social Determinants of Health (Bonner, 2020), inequalities in health and wellbeing were reviewed, from public health, cultural and geopolitical perspectives, in the North East (Kunonga et al, 2020) and the North West (Arden and Cunliffe, 2020; Dennett and Russell, 2020). In that previous publication, housing policy in Scotland (Anderson, 2020) and the needs of future generations in Wales (Farrell, 2020) provided specific geopolitically focused examples aimed at resolving identified regional needs.

In this current volume devolution to metropolitan boroughs, and the organisation of combined versus unitary local authorities, reviewed by Shutt, in Chapter 5, highlight the need for a geopolitical focus in the development of socioeconomic policy, to build back in a way that is fair for all.

A recognition of the need to address social and economic inequalities has been a key manifesto issue of the Boris Johnson government, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This ‘levelling up’ agenda has become more politically relevant during COVID-19. Although the economic consequences of the first and second lockdowns have distracted the government from its proposed ‘levelling up’ agenda, there is ongoing interest in Northern Powerhouse initiatives, including the high speed train line (HS2), North East infrastructure projects, Middlesbrough city centre housing initiative, 5G digital broadband and new research centres, supporting the hydrogen economy and wind farms along with new industrial strategies to support these, including the government’s ‘Green Deal’ (see Chapter 5). This chapter will consider economic planning and consequential effects on community development and wellbeing.