NEWS TRAVEL WEEKLY BUSINESS CONTINUED FROM THE BACK
sector – who may have previously been tempted to go to London. “Although London and the southeast is the biggest draw in terms of business and talent,” he said. “There’s a massive tech scene, not just travel scene, in Manchester now. “Manchester is a best-kept
secret and it shouldn’t be,” he added. “People are drawn to London for the city lights and the ‘streets paved with gold’, but there’s just as much going on in Manchester now.” Ellacott said the decision to
move large parts of the BBC to Salford and Autotrader’s presence in the north were evidence of the burgeoning technology scene in Manchester. He said building on education and skills in the north was the “most important” part of the Northern Powerhouse initiative and said infrastructure assets would “work themselves out”. Ellacott said that although the Northern Powerhouse was first trumpeted by former chancellor George Osborne, it was now down to businesses to see it through. “We can all moan at the government, but what can we do about it as businesses?” he asked, adding that Rentalcars has run apprenticeship and employee development schemes. Looking back on his 11 years
at Tui, Ellacott said deciding to move First Choice Airways’ head office to Luton was “one of the most difficult days of my career” because he believed the company’s “heart” was in Manchester, adding that there is “an energy, rawness and attitude” from staff that drives businesses in the north. Collette Roche, chief of staff at Manchester Airports Group – and a member of the Northern Powerhouse board – said the north would need “support” from the government “just to keep up” with London.
Travel Weekly Business Breakfast: Leading Northern Powerhouse tr
Travel ‘can be big enabler’ of productivity in the north
Travel can be the “enabler” of the Northern Powerhouse and help boost the region’s economy by £100 billion in gross added value by 2050.
The claim was made by Collette
Roche, chief of staff of Manchester Airports Group and a member of the Northern Powerhouse board, at Travel Weekly’s Business Breakfast at the airport. She said the economic boost
would be generated by improving transport links between cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, and better connections to global destinations from Manchester airport. “We [travel and transport] are seen as a massive enabler to that productivity,” she said. “We can get people to travel to work, which makes people productive. People need to travel to work that might not be in the UK.” Mentioning the recent launch of
a direct Manchester-San Francisco route, Roche said: “We need to open up the north to places with good digital capabilities.
HS3 would be a ‘game changer’ for Manchester airport
The proposed High Speed 3 rail network would be a “game changer” for Manchester airport, eanbling it to attract new airlines and routes, its chief of staff said. Collette Roche said northerners
would rather fly from Manchester than Heathrow and that new routes added in recent years had increased global access.
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travelweekly.co.uk 28 September 2017
ROCHE: ‘We can get people to travel to work, which makes people productive’
“We need to open up the north to places with good digital capabilities”
“It’s left to us to deliver that. I
will always fly the Manchester flag, but it’s bigger than that. We need to be part of ‘Team North’. “The only way to open up the north is to make sure you can get from Liverpool or Leeds to
HS3 would connect Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull and Newcastle, making Manchester airport more accessible. Roche said the HS2 link,
which connects northern cities with London, “is fine, and needs to happen”, but she said that network was more about capacity than speed.
“HS3 is the big game changer for us [in the north],” said Roche. “That means we can be the
total number-two hub outside of Heathrow, which is where we are positioned.”
BUSINESS BREAKFAST: The event was hosted by Manchester airport
Manchester in 30 minutes.” Roche said Northern Powerhouse
data suggested the north contributed £4,500 less per person to the UK economy than the south, but that a renewed focus on the economy in the north could create 50,000 jobs across all sectors. She said: “The partnership was established to understand that if we did work together as one and maximise the sum of the individual cities of the north, what would the size be. The size of the prize is quite considerable.”
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