Nicola Rigby, director in Bilfinger GVA’s Planning, Development and Regeneration team introduced and chaired an important panel discussion at MIPIM UK this week, to present the issues and challenges surrounding the much vaunted Northern Powerhouse – the collaborative working of the various City Regions across the north, working to deliver growth in line with the collective opportunity.
Nicola comments: “The Northern Powerhouse was conceived with the best intentions, responding to the potential to deliver greater benefits by working collaboratively and not competitively as City Regions. There have been many huge steps forward – with devolution deals in place or imminent across at least four of the City Regions, with more to follow, and nationally significant investment announcements across the board both from the private sector and relating to public sector infrastructure investment which will go some way to unlock occupier demand.
“The chancellor’s visit to Manchester with the Chinese President is an encouraging statement of intent, and follows on from his visit to China where he with Northern Powerhouse partners introduced the scale of investment opportunity across the north. What was really interesting in the discussion today was the amount of time we spent talking about the ‘the north’ as a real entity and investment opportunity. Clearly the City Regions will have to establish their own economic strategy to sit behind this, but the Northern narrative is gaining pace and prominence – and rightly so if we want to attract genuine international investment.”
