After three weeks and three party conferences, it's that moment to take stock and ask ourselves what has changed. When it comes to regional rebalancing the answer is: quite a lot.

‘Pre-season' we kicked off with the Government's new offer of £1.1bn for 55 new towns over 10 years. With a longer-term time horizon and a more transparent, fairer way of allocating the funding, this was a welcome break from recent schemes, although it still leaves local authorities far short of their £3.5bn cash shortfall this year. So far, so familiar.