WHAT WILL THE WESTERN GATEWAY

MEAN FOR GLOUCESTERSHIRE ?

We challenged Ian Mean, Gloucestershire Director of Business West and a former regional newspaper editor, to find out.

If we are absolutely honest, this region has never really had a clear vision of what it stands for and how its businesses can together drive its economy forward.

With the new government promising big ideas, I think we finally have the chance of coming out of our shell to convince Whitehall we mean business.

I sat down with Mark Hawthorne, Leader of Gloucestershire County Council and Colin Chick, his new Director of Economy, Environment and Infrastructure to discuss our future.

I have always been amazed that here in the West we have been unable to come up with a clear, economic unique selling point for this region which has so much going for it in terms of business growth.

Mark Hawthorne: “The government seems to want two words in their descriptor for these regional powerhouses, thus the final establishment of the name.

“Ours will now be called the Western Gateway, erstwhile the Western Powerhouse following the Northern Powerhouse and the Midlands Engine et al.”

The Western Gateway has just appointed a rather good chair in Katherine Bennett of Airbus in Filton and given it a wad of cash, about £400,000, to get the ball rolling.

Mark: “It was an initially an M4 corridor initiative—Bristol, Cardiff and Newport which then got extended to Swansea.”

Gloucestershire’s inclusion seemed to be an afterthought, I suggested. Mark thinks there was a challenge back from government to broaden it out.

“Because we had already been in discussions with WECA (West of England Combined Authority) there was a realisation that M4-M5 made sense as much as M4 on its own,” he said.

“If you want to have a powerhouse, it must have depth to it.

“You are looking at functional economic areas and the whole basis of the Northern Powerhouse is spreading the wealth out into the areas.

“Just going down a corridor wasn’t logical but with Gloucestershire in it, and Wiltshire as well, it has certainly got a lot more credibility as a powerhouse.”

What are we going to get out of it, because to me Gloucestershire has never had a clear unique selling point?

Colin Chick is forthright. He has built a reputation of questioning and knocking heads together. He’s an action man and there are not too many of them in local government.

He tells me: “I think Gloucestershire has been overlooked and the new Western Gateway gives us a position and a critical mass with the others.

“The government have got to stand up and look at Gloucestershire.”

He’s right. We have failed to really make an impact in Whitehall. It has been rather too cosy here in Gloucestershire.

Colin added: “Gloucestershire, in strategic military terms, stands in a powerful position. You cannot get to the south coast from the Midlands or the North without going through the county.

“Strategically, we are very important but we have to fight for every little bit of money we want for a road and rail network that is absolutely critical to UK plc.”

So, why have we been overlooked? I ask.

“I think you have hit the nail on the head” he says. “It’s a bit about our unique selling point. It’s almost because of where we are and how we sit between all those areas.”

And Mark added: “It’s how government looks at things. Bristol is a block, Cardiff is a block.”

Gloucestershire, in view of the fact that it’s split into six district areas, has never been viewed as a block.

“I think we are trying to change that narrative, and we have just declared ourselves as a city region to define ourselves as a block,” said Mark. “Look at it that way and we are suddenly a growth area of significant size, and something worth investing in.”

What do we get out of that scenario? I ask.

Mark puts his view: “You can’t argue that if you are just Gloucestershire, but you can if you are part of a bigger package of economic activity because the numbers stack up better and the yield is better.”

What is this new Western Gateway going to give us?

Mark: “I think you could get a boost for the economy in terms of funding for key infrastructure and support for transport improvements so badly needed.

“There will be a realisation that what we do in Gloucestershire affects Birmingham, Bristol and the whole of the country as well as this county. That is where we start to get that credibility.

“Everybody gets impacted with what Gloucestershire suffers from. We are not just banging our own drum—there are a lot of other people banging the drum for us as well.

“We will be part of a bigger club.

“We can put a case together—that’s where it gets its first tranche of what we are trying to achieve.

“The second one is about inward investment and overseas. We have been trying but we are not, on our own, big enough to make that pitch.

“Collectively, as Western Gateway working with Bristol, Swindon and Cardiff, we are already talking about going MIPIM London next year.”

(MIPIM is Europe’s biggest annual real estate exhibition where almost 30,000 international property professionals gather in the South of France).

Only one per cent of the population in Gloucestershire are using rail regularly whereas five per cent are nationally.

Colin, an engineer, said: “The motorway is overloaded but the train carries only one per cent of the traffic from Bristol to Birmingham.”

“If we are going to drive sustainable future growth, if we are going to get Gloucestershire where we want it to be with its offer on housing and economic growth over the next 30 years, and deliver our 2050 Vision, we can’t just do it on the motorway alone.

“If we do that it will be overloaded by 2030.

“I don’t know another corridor like it. I was at a European conference recently and I asked them what they thought the modal split is (between rail and road).

“When I told them it was only one per cent, they were absolutely gobsmacked. They expected me to say 20-30 per cent.”

And Mark says: “This is all part of the 2050 journey. It was the start of a conversation reflecting that we didn’t have a pipeline of projects going forward.

“Western Gateway is a continuation of that story. It is about us finding a subregional partnership for delivering some of what we want from our 2050 vision for Gloucestershire.”