Resilience to disruptions: the role of regional soft spaces

Focusing on COVID-19, this article illuminates comparative insights into resilience governance in England and how the regional soft spaces of local resilience forums differentially experienced this momentous disruptive event. The pandemic has exposed the limited ability of these regional soft spaces to enhance resilience to disruptions and thus narrow the resilience implementation gap. This article contributes to theory and practice on the tensions and opportunities to progress resilience governance through regional soft spaces amid an evolving policy landscape post-pandemic.

According to the publication enacting the Resilience Framework will require: 

• Both a hardening and a softening of LRFs as regional soft spaces
• Closer integration with place-making and other policy agenda such as net zero and levelling 
• Local resilience forums may become less informal, more accountable, and harder
• A widening of collaborative opportunities 
• Place-based leadership for enhancing resilience to disruption via regional soft spaces