Views from Westminster
LET’S GET ON WITH DELIVERING DEVOLUTION
By Antony Higginbotham Member of Parliament for Burnley
It was just a few weeks ago that Lancashire County Council announced that formal talks with government had started to look at a potential devolution deal. For most of us, this has been a long time coming.
Devolution offers the opportunity to see greater decision making made locally. By those who know our area best. Executive authority transferred from the corridors of Whitehall to our home in Lancashire. The opportunities, and risks, are huge.
The risk mainly comes from doing nothing. Even a cursory glance at industry newspapers and magazines from elsewhere in the country shows you how impactful devolution can be.
We read about the transformation taking place over in Teesside; the growing Midlands engine with the Mayor of Birmingham, Andy Street, pushing it forward; Manchester being regenerated by the Combined Authority and mayor; and London – our only true global city – continuing to drive economic growth for the whole UK.
In Lancashire, that’s the opportunity available to us. An outward looking, globally engaged county, able to
attract investment from around the world whilst also dealing with the structural challenges we have. From health inequalities to major infrastructure needs.
My message to government, to officials at County Hall, and to district leaders, is to get on with the task at hand because I’m excited by where this could take us.
Separately, as you’d expect, inflation has been a big focus for all involved in politics as I know it is for our business community. The figures continue to be disappointing, but there are signs that the peak has been reached.
Looking at comparable countries it’s clear that our interest rates are now getting to the right kind of ballpark and, if the USA is anything to go by, we should start to see inflation drop.
The only way any of this works is if government, the Bank of England, business, and households are all going in the same direction. That means difficult decisions at times, but ultimately, it’s those difficult decisions that will see inflation start to come down and the kind of fiscal and monetary changes that can bring.
GROWING IN CONFIDENCE
An initiative which lends money to developers to bridge vital funding gaps on major property schemes in Lancashire is celebrating its tenth anniversary.
Since the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Growing Places Fund was launched in 2013, the government-backed programme has invested more than £40m in developments of all types and sizes across the county.
This in turn has unlocked a further £100m of private investment, enabled the delivery of nearly 800 new homes, and helped to create more than 2,000 jobs.
Notable projects it has supported include Burnley’s On the Banks, one of the largest heritage-led property schemes in the North West; the regeneration of the Chatsworth Gardens estate in Morecambe’s West End; 30 new homes and public realm at Langroyd Place in Colne; and the 1m sq ft Burnley Bridge industrial site.
The Growing Places Fund has also contributed to the success of two of Lancashire’s most significant urban
regeneration developments in recent years.
In Blackburn, it was utilised by Maple Grove Developments to help bring forward the £20m Cathedral Quarter project which saw a rundown 25,000 sqm district transformed into a vibrant, mixed-use neighbourhood.
And in Preston it backed Etc Urban’s ambitious plan to convert a former Victorian warehouse on Guildhall Street, into The Union Carriageworks.
The loft apartments and offices scheme has been widely credited with kick-starting Preston’s current city living movement.
The fund continues to welcome applications from Lancashire businesses with viable proposals who find they have a gap in their financing.
The latest beneficiary is Walker & Williams, a Preston-based developer specialising in contemporary boutique hotels. It successfully applied for £1.6m of Growing Places finance to help bring forward the conversion of a historic magistrates’ court in Ormskirk into a five-star aparthotel.
LANCASHIREBUSINES SV
IEW.CO.UK
Miranda Barker OBE Chief executive
@elancschamber
TIME FOR THE UK GOVERNMENT TO CHAMPION US!
We are wonderful low carbon innovators in the UK but we do not compare well with others when it comes to applying funding to drive forward those innovations, commercialising them, manufacturing them and exporting them to the world.
And now, with Joe Biden’s new Inflation Reduction Act, 369 billion USD is being thrown at low carbon innovators from around the world to land their manufacturing there, not here. We stand to lose more. The new Atlantic Declaration does at least row some way back, committing in its headlines to try and build joint supply chains for clean tech solutions, broadening ‘friendshoring’ across the two continents.
But this is not enough to stop new innovations withering on the vine if they are unsupported, or fleeing to far flung shores for some of those Biden dollars. We need to hear Government championing our low carbon technologies - but offering more than words. No, we can’t compete with the billions, but we can do everything but. We can provide ministerial level support to understand and communicate our leading technologies when overseas, helping us forge links with global customers.
Government needs to ramp up exactly this type of support and more. They can truly back the development of top-to-bottom ecosystems of support, facilitating growth, investing in the creation of managed manufacturing, building local supply chains, offering access to funding and help in exporting those technologies to the world. Then communicate it and champion it in Lancashire and beyond, regionally and nationally, and provoke those American supply chains to want to supply to us!
RedCAT, based at the offices of East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce, does this. But come on Government. We can compete on innovation - give us your voice!
Call us on 01254 356487
or visit
chamberlowcarbon.co.uk info@chamberlowcarbon.co.uk
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