NORTH WALES GROWTH DEAL

A big deal

Alwen Williams is the recently appointed programme director for the regions Growth deal. Here she explains what that really means for North Wales…

Day one was the 6th January 2020, 24 years, almost to the day, since I had joined BT as a freshfaced teenager. I arrived at the Conwy Business Centre with that faintly familiar ‘first day’ feeling, unsure what was ahead but knowing it was the start of a brand new chapter in my life. e

Six weeks on and I feel a huge sense of responsibility, more than I’ve felt in any role before, because North Wales matters to me.

The team with me on this journey are Henry Aron, leading on energy, Stuart Whitfield on digital, Hedd Vaughan-Evans is our operations manager heading up the programme office and my deputy. Nia Medi and Lynn Slaven from Gwynedd Council are giving us executive and administrative support and we have David Mathews, currently with Denbighshire council taking up his post leading on land and property in April. Further programmes include skills and employment, advanced manufacturing and land based industries and tourism. We’ll grow as a team to deliver these and we’ll work with specialist consultants to make sure we have the right skills and experience in the team. Iwan Prys Jones is a consultant currently working with us on the transport programme.

With a great team in place, part of my job is to make it as easy as possible for them to crack on with the work. Our first major milestone is to create full business cases for our fourteen growth deal projects. These will go through Welsh Government and UK Treasury later this year to secure the final deal and the £120 million investment, spread over 15 years, from each government.

If we are to deliver truly transformational projects, we need to work very closely with our partners in education and the business sector to attract further investment and also make sure that we are equipping the current workforce and future generation with the skills they will need to thrive in North Wales.

The discussion and true collaboration with business and industry is critical. I’ve spent all of my working life in business and I’ve experienced first-hand what it feels like to be a pawn in a game. Being wheeled out on display for important politicians without having had any input or engagement in the process of shaping the plans. Frankly it’s insulting. Thankfully I’ve also experienced true collaboration between business and the public sector. So it’s important to me that we get this right for North Wales.

My work is something I’ve always taken great pride in and I feel privileged to have been appointed into this role. People have asked if it was difficult to leave my career with BT. I’m fortunate to have had a career that I’ve absolutely loved for more than two decades, but I found the right opportunity at the right time and the ‘hiraeth’ for home was much stronger than what a future in London could offer me.

The ache deep in my belly still reminds me occasionally that I’ve lost something. I can’t put my finger on what it is, perhaps just a sense of belonging that was familiar, comforting and reassuring. On the flip side, the passion, excitement and challenge of my new role, at home, in North Wales, and my new work family, dulls the ache. My brain is engaged from the moment I wake up and, for the first time for a long time, I feel like I have a purpose that’s aligned with my life compass. n

Alwen Williams lives in Gwernaffield near Mold and she recently returned home to help the North Wales Economic Ambition Board drive forward the £1 billion Growth Deal for the region.