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Posted: Thu 6th Aug 2026
Last updated: Thu 6th Aug 2026
8 min read
"Good growth in every postcode." Andy Burnham has said it so often since setting out his leadership pitch that it's fast becoming the defining phrase of his agenda for the country.
It's a brilliant line – ambitious, place-based and optimistic. Exactly the kind of thing we want to hear.
During his speech at the People's History Museum in Manchester in June 2026, he put it like this:
"Imagine good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart... We will never get growth up to the level Britain needs unless every single postcode in the land is set up to contribute to it."
We love the ambition, but small business owners live in the gap between a good line and a real difference.
So instead of just reacting to the slogan, we want to set out what we think good growth actually needs on the ground, backed by the data and by the people living it every day.
We put the question to the Enterprise Nation community, and their answers shaped almost everything below.
Burnham is responding to something real.
Growth in the UK isn't evenly spread, and the gap between the best-connected postcodes and everywhere else shows up in investment, in pay and in the everyday infrastructure that lets a business function.
UK businesses attracted £14.4 billion in equity investment in the first half of 2026. London took 70% of it, £10.1 billion.1
London businesses also generate an average turnover of £296,000 per employee, roughly double the £145,000 generated by businesses in the South West.2
Public transport satisfaction sits at 65% in London against just 28% in the South West.3
There's real cause for optimism too.
Every single UK region grew its number of active businesses in the first half of 2026.4
The fastest-growing places for investment weren't London at all. The North West attracted £1.19 billion, up almost 90% on H2 2025.
Wales saw investment increase more than fivefold to £159 million, while also recording the fastest turnover growth of any UK nation or region in 2025, up 16.4%.5
Here's our take, built with the input of the Enterprise Nation community.
You can't have good growth in a postcode with a dying high street.
Vacancy on UK high streets stood at 13.2% in Q2 20266, and analysts warn the upcoming £1.06 billion rise in business rates could put 60,000 small shops and 150,000 jobs at risk.7
When it comes to "good growth", a thriving high street is a huge part of what the phrase should actually mean.
Catriona Robson-Scarborough of Your Man With A Van puts it plainly in our online community thread:
"Get the high streets thriving without penalising independent shops with ridiculous business rates."
Her wider point is one we think government keeps missing – that growth policy tends to chase new and shiny, when the smarter move is backing the businesses already trading.
Catriona adds:
"Rather than let existing businesses fail, help them. Invest in them, reduce the taxes they pay, resolve the nightmare paperwork."
And she pushes the definition of good growth even further back than business policy usually goes:
"Growth starts with good health, good education and safe communities. That is where people thrive, and thriving people boost the economy."
Every area of deprivation, in her view, needs investment first, because a postcode can't grow on business support alone if the foundations underneath it aren't solid.
Data and infrastructure only get you so far.
Growth also needs belief, the kind that makes a business owner actually pull the trigger on hiring, expanding or investing in new equipment.
Ben Arhin, founder of LoanLogic in Dorset, describes good growth as the gym owner opening a second site, the clinic investing in new equipment, or the hospitality business hiring because they believe the customers will show up.
Access to finance matters, he says – that's literally his job – but funding alone doesn't create growth.
"Owners need to feel there is a future worth investing in."
Ben is also sceptical of slogans doing the heavy lifting. Government can create better conditions, but small business owners still have to back themselves and create momentum locally.
"If everyone assumes things are only going to get worse, that becomes self-fulfilling."
Confidence collapses fast when the basics don't work, when transport is unreliable, town centres are neglected and the people making local decisions don't understand what small business actually needs.
Enterprise Nation member Kerry Madgwick is clear that words need to become action.
For her, good growth in Kent means thriving town centres, better transport access, more local jobs and cost-effective public transport.
That should come alongside enough support for small businesses that new development strengthens rather than strains the community.
Kerry says what's missing most right now is infrastructure that keeps pace with growth, and MPs and councils who genuinely understand and care about small business.
Large companies already have a direct line into Whitehall.
Smaller businesses – even fast-growing, well-run ones – often don't, and that gap becomes a growth ceiling in its own right.
Sarah Stone runs Samtaler, a virtual business employing nine people across the country, from a military base in Warminster.
Her clients are large companies, but the help she needs to access trade and public sector opportunities runs through central government, and she finds it genuinely hard to navigate.
Her request is specific and, frankly, achievable – a local business adviser who can help smaller companies access the same doors that very large companies already have a direct line into.
Good growth that only serves this year's balance sheet isn't "good", it's short-term.
The postcodes that will still be thriving in 10 years are the ones investing in the entrepreneurs who aren't trading yet.
Jill Poet, CEO of the Organisation for Responsible Businesses, has watched Southend's approach to business support shift with every change of council leadership since before the pandemic.
She sees a business development culture that too often defaults to a narrow, profit-first model rather than genuinely backing the social and environmental impact that small businesses can deliver for their communities.
Jill also flags a gap that many towns will recognise – patchy, inconsistent support for young entrepreneurs.
She highlights standout examples like Hull Youth Enterprise Team and Yorkshire in Business in Scarborough, whose pop-up shop and workspace model gives young entrepreneurs a genuine, low-risk way to test and build businesses.
Put these together and "good growth in every postcode" starts to look less like a slogan and more like a checklist:
Thriving high streets and support for the businesses already trading
Confidence to invest
Infrastructure that keeps pace
A genuine route into government for businesses that aren't already big enough to have one
Investment in the next generation of entrepreneurs alongside this year's
None of that is out of reach. Most of it doesn't even need new money.
What it does need is joined-up thinking and people in local and national government who understand what small business actually needs to say yes to growth.
That's the version of "good growth in every postcode" we'd back. Over to you, Andy.
What does good growth look like where you are? Drop your postcode and your answer, we're keeping this conversation open.
