THE BIG INTERVIEW JIM GILL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17 servants to put aside their normal IM GILL has stepped down as chief executive of Liverpool Vision, having completed three decades working in economic regeneration in the city. Whether as a director of English Partnerships or more recently as chief executive of both incarnations of Liverpool Vision, Mr Gill has been at the vanguard of the city’s regeneration since 1994. Even in his earlier career, he was closely involved with the city’s fight back against decline. Mr Gill took over as chief executive of Liverpool Vision in 2001 and remained in the top job when the urban regeneration company was merged with two other economic development quangos, Liverpool Land Development Company and business support agency Business Liverpool. At Liverpool Vision, he was responsible for overseeing the city’s “Big Dig” which included upgrading and redesigning the city centre streets and pavements – the construction of Liverpool One and the Echo Arena and BT Convention Centre at Kings Dock. Prior to joining Liverpool Vision, Mr Gill was regional director, and then commercial director, of English Partnerships from 1994, based at Mercury Court, on Tithebarn Street. Prior to that, he spent four years in the private sector with Amec Developments. While he saw much progress in the city in the latter part of his career, things were very different when, as a young economist, he joined the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) in 1971. He rose to the civil service rank of assistant secretary before moving to Amec. Mr Gill recalls how there seemed to be a major announcement about factory closures and job losses in Liverpool every Friday evening. As everybody knows, matters reached a low point with the Toxteth riots of 1981. In the aftermath of the riots, a number of government departments, including the DTI, formed task-forces under the leadership of then cabinet minister Michael Heseltine, to tackle Merseyside’s social and economic problems. “We used to have one man in Liverpool,” Mr Gill said. “But after Toxteth, we set up an office in Derby Square. Heseltine wanted to give more focus to regeneration. “It was a pretty awful time. “The same areas of Liverpool that were suffering in the 1980s are the same ones that are suffering today. We have not made significant shifts in economic prosperity in those places. “I remember going into a shop on Church Street in the early 1980s, thinking the stock here hasn’t moved for ages. “Activity in the city centre has visibly changed since, but other parts of the city, which were suffering most then, are still suffering today. “Confidence is way higher than it was, but it takes a longer time to turn around communities than it does to change the physical look of the city centre. “The city went through a long, slow decline in the 20th century, which accelerated in the 1980s and we’re still recovering from the 1980s. “It felt daunting.” Mr Gill explained that the task-force allowed the civil
J
18
practices and replace them with more innovative methods. “They threw the rule book away and, as a result, things got done quicker. Mercury Court and Wavertree Technology Park got going. “There was a sense of excitement working with ministers like Heseltine. “He was an active player, asking people what had been achieved since the last meeting. “When you get commitment of the nature he put into it, you get a sense of ‘can do’. “But, unless you get that commitment, government reverts to type. It becomes rule-bound. “It’s when you can break the rules that you get things happening.” One key initiative at the time was the creation of the Merseyside Development Corporation (MDC). “It was not very democratic, it was almost imposed on the local authorities,” said Mr Gill. “But you can look at the things they did achieve, and while they might not have had the qualities of today, they were desperate days and getting any kind of investment was an achievement.” Mr Gill points to the Eldonian village as an example of the sort of project that can make a huge difference to communities. “They built on something that was reasonably strong and tried to extend it to the community around it,” he said. “It’s probably more valuable because it came from within the community, rather than being imposed from outside.” Indeed, Mr Gill thinks the Eldonian village is an example of how much of the rest of north Liverpool could have been developed. The fact resources haven’t been directed that way, he believes, represents a missed opportunity. “Vauxhall, Kirkdale and much of north Liverpool doesn't have a major employment base. If you addressed that area in the way we addressed Speke-Garston, you would have got more value. It could have been linked to the community-based schemes in the north of Liverpool. “Things that are embedded in the community have more chance of succeeding than things brought in from outside. “Most people would say the city centre has been regenerated successfully. But what it hasn’t done is translate physical change into local benefits. “There are people in some communities that don't see the benefit of the changes in the city centre.” By way of example, Mr Gill recalls a visit to a school in Speke. “A lot of resources had been put into Speke. We had the Estuary Commerce Park, the Boulevard Industrial Park and new school buildings in Speke. “Everybody was feeling good about it, including me. “We met seven or eight pupils aged 10 or 11 years – bright kids, longing to talk to us. The school’s specialism was performing arts, so these kids were very outgoing. “I was interested to find out whether the kids thought there was a better future for them as a result of all of the changes. “One girl recognised that the new school was great and that it would offer facilities outside school hours that the whole
Jim Gill in St Paul’s Square, Liverpool
community could use. She was enthusiastic. “Her mother was going to do a course there. “I asked her about the city centre. “She said she never went there ‘Because it’s dirty and smelly’. “She had no perception that what was going on in the city centre was relevant to her and her family. “It does make you think about the real value of the things we are involved in.” Notwithstanding what is a widely-held scepticism about the broader benefits of city centre regeneration, Mr Gill believes it
was crucial to the city as a whole: “It’s a feeling. “I do think that, since the 1980s and even the mid 90s, there’s a sense in communities that you can make a difference by encouraging people to take control of their own lives. “I get much more of a sense of real activity, enthusiasm and optimism about the future now than I ever did in the 1980s. “The major improvement in kids’ performance at GCSE level is another reason to be optimistic about the future. If it means kids think there is a point to studying, then that is very different. “The despondency of the 1980s –
all that is largely gone now. People are more optimistic. “But we have a big test coming. “It feels a little like the 1980s all over again. The drastic restructuring of the public sector will pose challenges to that sense of confidence. “It feels a bit like we are entering into a period when the daily news will be bad news, not good, once more. “And that has the potential to feed despondency.” The recession of the past two years and the forthcoming public sector spending cuts, combined with the ending of European Union funded Objective 1