HOTSPOTS ROSSENDALE
IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
UNLOCKING THE VALLEY’S GOLDEN FUTURE
by Ged Henderson
Our road trip around Lancashire’s hotspots takes us to Rossendale. We travelled to the Kingfisher Centre in Rawtenstall to speak to businesses and local government representatives about the issues they and the borough are facing
Connectivity and skills – two interlinked issues that hold the key to Rossendale’s economic future, according to its business leaders.
They highlight the absence of further and higher education provision within theborough and the daily difficulties faced travelling around the valley.
There has been some good news on both fronts. Rossendale received £17.9m government funding in the spring Budget. Some of the millions will be spent on creating a new centre for skills provision in Rawtenstall Old Town Hall and streamlining the gyratory system in the town, to free what has long been a notorious road bottleneck.
Other projects on the agenda include reconfiguring Rawtenstall’s market and redeveloping the site of the existing market in nearby Bacup.
Rossendale Council’s recently appointed chief executive Rob Huntington sees the funding as “a really positive move”, supporting the valley’s placemaking ambitions.
He believes Rossendale can capitalise on its location and the opportunities that presents. In the late 19th Century, an industrial revolution powerhouse, this areawas known as “the golden
valley”. Rob declares boldly: “My ambitions are that itbecomes that again.”
The skills agenda, connectivity within and beyond the valley and inwardinvestment are all high on his agenda. The lack of higher and further education is “a recognised gap and a key priority”.
He says: “The future of Rossendale’s economy is productivity, we need to have the right people with the right skills, the right opportunities, the right businesses and we need to attract and retain talent, which is about meeting their expectations.
“If we are going to look at inclusive growth, which is about opportunities, then the right jobs and the right skills need to be matched. There’s a gap in the valley at the moment around that and it is something we will be addressing as part of the funding.”
He adds: “We’ve got to think ‘what is Rossendale about, what is that big strategic picture?’ What is our profile and what do we want to be known for.” That means looking at what neighbouring Greater Manchester’s devolution deal means for the borough and what opportunities it can take advantage of from the Lancashire 2050 strategic framework.
Mike Lane is managing director of Rawtenstall based WeBuyBooks. He chaired the borough’s levelling up board which drew up its bid to government. Skills and connectivity played a major part in its discussions.
He says A level students currently face a 50-minute average travelling time each way to go to college. “There aren’t even decent buses,” he adds, pointing out thatthe old Accrington and Rossendale College site in Rawtenstall is now home to a fast-food outlet.
Mike would have liked to have seen more of the funding aimed at skills and training but the levelling up bid process had “considerable constraints”. He says: “All we could do was provide a facility for people to hopefully latch onto. Arrangements with the local colleges to support that are not fixed in place yet and it’s possibly the weakest part of the whole bid.”
Mark Allen, managing director of Orthaplastics, a long-established Rossendale business based in Bacup, says: “As we grow as a company and diversify, we really do struggle with that skills gap and tapping into local employment.
“As a company 77 per cent of our employees are within a 10-mile radius. We are a very big
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