Liverpool

One North

George Osborne

Another week, another major announcement by the chancellor about big investment into infrastructure projects in the North, as the cities of Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool joined forces to launch the ‘One North’ document, which was duly supported by George Osborne.

Cynics suggest that this series of recent announcements is simply electioneering; a way of convincing northern voters that the Tories have not forgotten them. In reality there are few votes for the Conservatives in Liverpool or Manchester- though in Lancashire and Yorkshire several seats will be keenly contested at next year’s General Election.

In truth, post recession, all the mainstream political parties have woken up to the fact that a UK solely reliant on the success of its capital city is not a sensible long term economic strategy. The huge gap between the South East and the rest of the country has needed addressing for generations, and the planned investment in ambitious transport projects, improving links between northern cities, as well as the much debated HS2 project which provides greater capacity for the routes to and from London are good first steps.

However, it is still in the area of governance that the north can and must make more immediate progress.

HS2, HS3 and the other potential investments into the road network are medium to long term initiatives. Greater power to our region can happen now. Our political leaders, backed by the business community, should demand we get on with it.

The Big Partnership

Big Partnership

There has been much talk in recent weeks from government ministers, shadow ministers and political commentators about the creation of a Northern ‘super city.’

Evan Davies presented this solution to the growing North – South divide in his two part documentary ‘Mind the Gap’ earlier this year, and it is something that has been picked up by the chancellor George Osborne and Labour’s Lord Adonis who has the brain the size of the planet, in recent policy papers.

There is no suggestion that there should be any administrative governance arrangements for the whole of the region at this point; but clearly there has been a warming towards the establishment of city region or metro mayors. Scotland’s continued drive for devolved powers has no doubt impacted on the latest Westminster thinking.

But equally there has been a recognition that there is no sense in talking about bridging the economic gap between London and the rest of the UK unless you recognise the need for huge investment in big infrastructure projects north of the Watford gap, and that one of the essential ingredients for this to work is the need for the big northern cities to work in a more co-ordinated and cohesive way if those schemes are to be delivered effectively.

Business leaders are sceptical about the ability of politicians to put aside long standing city rivalries and parochialisms in order to create this new panacea. However, evidence on the ground is that there is genuine and positive dialogue taking place between Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool.

This week Leeds chief executive Tom Riordan tweeted; ‘Very good meeting with Sir Howard Bernstein aligning Leeds & Manchester plans on HS2 and HS3. Transpennine working stronger than I have ever seen.’

Meanwhile, the chief executive of Liverpool Vision Max Steinberg announced last week that Liverpool and Manchester will be sharing a stand at MIPIM UK in October.

Conversations are leading to tangible actions and outcomes, and the ‘One North’ document that is due to be released on 5th August will further accelerate the process of the North working together in a far more collaborative fashion.

All of this is great news for the region, for the economy and for business. It is an agenda Downtown has been promoting for ten years. It is an agenda the North’s private sector should be vociferously welcoming and supporting.

Beware of over the top ‘spin’

over the top spin

Liverpool has enjoyed a fabulous seven weeks in the sun as the city has played host to the International Festival for Business. So successful have we been in the execution of what was a challenging gig, the government have announced that they will let us do it all over again in 2016. The ambition now, rightly, is that this will become a biennial event and IFB18, 20, 22, and so on will all be held here.

On the back of a ten year regeneration and renaissance that has included the total transformation of our world famous waterfront; the European Capital of Culture celebrations; the Liverpool One development; the establishment of a first class arena; a myriad of new, quality hotels; the Super Port; the giants and let us not forget, the return to Europe of our two Premier League football clubs, and it is absolutely right that Liverpudlians should be encouraged, confident and have a bit of a swagger.

However, a strong word of warning against this extremely positive backdrop. The city is at the start of a comeback journey – nowhere near at its end. The narrative we should embrace ought to be one of aspiration and ambition. We are aiming to build on recent successes after a generation of struggle. We want to be taken seriously on the national and international stage again and regain our reputation as a smart city that you can do business with. We want to attract more people – many, many more people to work, play and most importantly live here.

We are not, however, as some of the more over excited ambassadors for Liverpool have been increasingly claiming in recent weeks to delegates from all across the globe, the ‘best city in the world’. In fact, we are not even in the top 100!

A  city that has a much higher number of unemployed people than the national average, a startlingly low rate of business start-up’s, and a worrying skills shortage cannot and should not claim to be the best in the world.

Does the hyperbole matter? Well, in my opinion, yes it does. The biggest asset of any business, and of any city, is knowing your strengths, knowing your weaknesses, and being able to engage with potential investors in an honest and open manner that will get them to take you seriously.

Standing up and saying ‘welcome to the best city in the world’ may impress the indigenous business community, though my guess is not that many of them. To an international audience it is at best a bit of a joke; at worst over the top, unnecessary hype.

Liverpool has a huge amount to shout about. We should do that in an effective, consistent and realistic fashion – then we can continue the momentum and fantastic success that we have enjoyed during the past decade, carry on tackling the very real and serious challenges that we still face; and one day, maybe one day, actually be able to stand up and say ‘Liverpool is the best city in the world’ and be taken seriously.

We Are Ten…

We Are TEN

Next week Downtown celebrates its tenth anniversary. We will be doing a lot over the next seven days, hosting a birthday party for 300 people, launching a new website and introducing an APP.

It’s all exciting stuff, and part of what I would describe as a growing movement rather than a growing business.

We have come a long way in the last decade, and much of what we have been involved with and achieved has been covered in the latest edition of our quarterly magazine DQ – in the printers now, and on your desks in about a week.

For me personally it has been, and continues to be, an incredible journey. When I set Downtown Liverpool in Business up in 2004 I would not have imagined having a presence in Lancashire, Manchester and Leeds. Indeed, I was told by a senior official of Liverpool City Council that ‘Downtown won’t last five minutes’.

I thought it would work in Liverpool, but I doubted if the brand was ‘exportable’. Four cities and 800 member companies later, and I am beginning to think it is.

Reflecting and reminiscing is not something we tend to do very often at Downtown Towers. We spend most of our time thinking of what we can do next, rather than what we have achieved in the past. This is the main reason why we maintain vibrancy, dynamism and a spirit that no other organisation in our space can match in my opinion.

However, on this occasion I hope you forgive me for some self indulgence. Here are my personal highlights of Downtown life over the last ten years.

  • Interviewing Lord Michael Heseltine in 2010.
  • Tony Wilson interviewing James Barton at the very first Downtown event at the Racquets Club, Liverpool in 2004.
  • The making of our ‘Relax’ video for the 2008 ‘Livercool’ Awards.
  • Steve Broomhead, then chief executive of the Northwest Development Agency, proclaiming that Downtown was ‘the business club with attitude’ at the City of Liverpool Business Awards in 2006.
  • The launch of Downtown Manchester at Cloud 23 with Sir Howard Bernstein and 200 Manchester business leaders in 2009.
  • The inaugural 2013 Lancashire Business Growth Conference, one of the most dynamic business events I have ever attended – and it was ours!
  • John Bishop, who performed at three awards dinners for Downtown before he made his fame and fortune (it’s all down to us).
  • The launch of Downtown Leeds in 2012 at a very noisy and challenging Corn Exhange with shadow minister and Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves, and 200 business leaders.
  • Manchester’s singing icon Rowetta and her performance at our ’24 Hour Party People’ inaugural ‘City of Manchester Business Awards’ at the spectacular Cathedral in 2011.
  • Sexy Networking 2004 onwards, and upwards!

I hope you remember some of these too, have many more of your own, but most importantly work with us to create new memories in the future. Here’s to the next ten years!

The Mayor, the city region and car boot sales…

Combined Authority

Downtown Liverpool joined forces with the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and Pro Liverpool yesterday morning to discuss the future of our city region with Mayor Joe Anderson and 200 business leaders.

The issues that have caused most controversy and consternation in recent weeks – the name of the proposed combined authority that brings together the six local authorities from across the Liverpool city region, and who should lead that body, were high on the agenda, but seemingly have still to be fully resolved.

As Liverpool’s leading politician Joe Anderson is clearly doing his best to cajole, compromise and convince his fellow colleagues from Halton, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral to do the right thing, but in the end he must resist giving in too much, otherwise the potential power and influence of the new body will be lost before it has even got off the ground.

That being said, one cannot do anything other than admire the passion and fire in the belly that Joe Anderson demonstrates when he articulates the case for Liverpool to collaborate not just with neighbouring districts but other core cities too in order to deliver continued progress and economic growth for his home town.

As the excellent Michael Parkinson of the University of Liverpool stated at the breakfast seminar, the opportunities that exist for attracting inward investment are all the more powerful if we can get the whole region rowing in the same direction. But his more pertinent point was this: With an ever shrinking pot of public funding, governments will want to spend their cash with partners they trust to deliver.

Manchester has that credibility in abundance. Liverpool city region, in no small part because of petty rows over name checking Halton in every strategy document, or marketing the latest car boot sale in Wirral as an official IFB event, has a reputation in Whitehall of being a ‘risky’ partner; a bit of a basket case.

Government ministers, particularly Eric Pickles, have been immature in taking advantage of a local row among Labour council leaders and MP’s with the absurd name he has saddled the Combined Authority with, but he should never have been given the open goal to shoot in to in the first place.

It is time for our local authority leaders to put their parochial agenda’s aside and accept Liverpool, once and for all, as the attack brand for the city region, and Joe Anderson as the best personality to lead a Combined Authority. Then Whitehall may take us a little more seriously than it appears to at the moment.