Survey results from the Severn Growth Summit have just been released and they show that business is in favour of scrapping the Severn tolls.
But what wider impacts should we expect from this initiative driven by the The Rt Hon Alun Cairns MP?
The recent Severn Growth Summit (22/01/18) held at the Celtic Manor Hotel in Newport, provided a stimulus for both my commencement of my doctoral study at Cardiff Met and an interesting melting pot of political, social and economic views from across the South West of England and Wales.
The so-called Western Powerhouse, to go alongside the Northern Powerhouse and Midland’s Engine, is a corridor of growth stretching between Bath, Bristol, Newport, Cardiff and Swansea. There was also consternation from a local councillor from Chepstow, that the home of horse racing in Wales was not included in this still forming regional road-map to economic prosperity.
There seemed to be a lack of clarity around what in fact the Western Powerhouse would actually do, or achieve. Sign-posts where provided to highlight cross-border trade, collaboration, and linkages at a diplomatic level as potential avenues for collaboration. But this informally already occurs, and the unfortunately while the withdrawal of the tolls on the Severn Bridges will obviously make South Wales more attractive for logistics companies (amongst others), the real winners are the estate agents as house prices in Newport, Cardiff and Chepstow will rise.
Ben Lucas (@BenLucas_), from Metrodynamics, at least had a vision of where to take the initiative. His ideas amounted to the regional players creating some kind of Steering Group, with 3 key themes to drive forward collaborative working across the geographic region. My own perspective is that without an overarching regional development body, such as the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), with most importantly funds to invest in cross-city initiatives (the Bristol +Bath Science Park and the iAeros in Yeovil and Filton being good examples) that this could become a toothless exercise.
The Secretary of State for Wales (@AlunCairns) was also at pains to stress that both technology, in the form of the Compound Semi-conductor Centre in Cardiff, and transport where the key enablers in forming his vision of the Western Powerhouse. However this seems at odds with the recently released Prosperity for All: Taking the Nation Forward which bases the Wales’ future in the Foundational economy (do check out Prof. Brian Morgan’s recent piece on the subject) of public sector health and social care provision, housing, mental health, skills and employability. There seems to be a deep disconnect between the ‘sexy’ politics of regional collaboration and fulfilling the national base level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that’s expressed through the current policy.
SimplyEnterprising 