http://www.nwda.co.uk/pdf/315_Issue_11

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315째 THE RDA MAGAZINE FEB 2007 ISSUE 11

Phoenix rises Rebirth of east Manchester Culture city Liverpool unveils 08 programme Wind of change Gearing up for low-carbon economy

GLOBAL WINNER

Auto industry delivers model performance

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THE RDA MAGAZINE FEB 2007 ISSUE 11

HIGHLIGHTS

CONTENTS THE THIRD DEGREE 4

16

PHOENIX RISES

22

CULTURE CITY

24

WIND OF CHANGE

John Stageman

BUSINESS 6

Windfall for enterprising councils

8

Auto industry gears up

Introducing East Manchester – a brave new world of well-designed housing, world-class sporting facilities, rising educational aspirations and soon home to the UK’s first regional casino.

10 RDA priorities for government spending 11 Business support reorganised 12 Biocentre to develop new medicines

SKILLS AND EDUCATION 14 Culture campus link to creative careers 15 University drive to help industry

As the countdown continues to its year as European Capital of Culture, Liverpool has begun a programme of exciting taster events designed to whet the appetite for 2008.

PEOPLE AND JOBS 16 Rising confidence in East Manchester 18 Liverpool builds bright future

INFRASTRUCTURE 20 Kingsway to conquer property market

QUALITY OF LIFE 22 Birthday city celebrates

Through the Northwest Climate Change Action Plan, the region is taking a lead nationally in establishing a sustainable, lowcarbon economy, which should help it to gain a competitive advantage in an emerging marketplace.

24 Meeting the climate change challenge 26 Tourism awards honour role models

OUR VISION:

315° CONTACTS

REGULARS 28 People in the region 30 Event highlights 31 Getting in touch

‘A dynamic, sustainable international economy which competes on the basis of knowledge, advanced technology and an excellent quality of life for all.’

Editor Trevor Bates email@trevorbates.fsnet.co.uk NWDA Erica Boardman email: erica.boardman@nwda.co.uk tel: 01925 400 217 visit www.nwda.co.uk & www.visitenglandsnorthwest.com

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CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

A YEAR OF PROGRESS Since the NWDA was established seven years ago, we’ve learnt a lot about what really drives economic growth in the Northwest. One of the most crucial lessons is that we must focus our attention and investment on transformational projects that have the most impact on our economy.

2007 promises to be a watershed year for many of the Northwest’s transformational projects. In January, the BBC confirmed it will be moving 1,500 jobs from London to Salford in Greater Manchester. The move is a massive boost for creative industries in the North of England. Not only will this create the largest BBC presence outside of London, it will also bring together several departments in Salford as the anchor tenant for mediacity:uk employing 15,500 people and adding £200 million every year to the regional economy.

The BBC’s commitment to the region marks what I am convinced will be a year of key progress for England’s Northwest. Another critical project to get underway is the reorganisation of business support. The business base in the Northwest is strong, with a long tradition of innovation and entrepreneurship. However, if our businesses are to improve their productivity, embrace innovation and raise skill levels, it is crucial that business support is streamlined and simplified.

The new Northwest Business Link service, which will be introduced in April, will provide a high-quality, consistent and targeted service for businesses. Importantly, it will address their needs and skills gaps whilst also impacting positively on the regional economy through encouraging business development and growth.

As this edition of 315 goes to print, the Casino Advisory Panel has just recommended East Manchester as the location for the UK’s first regional casino, which is exciting news for the Northwest. The casino will build on the area’s ongoing regeneration, with the economic benefits felt across the whole of the region, and the Agency will continue to offer its support for Manchester’s plans.

We are, however, disappointed for Blackpool.

The regional casino would have played an

important part in Blackpool’s regeneration masterplan and was a key transformational action in the Regional Economic Strategy. Our next steps will be to work hard with our partners in Blackpool to identify a way forward for the resort. Our commitment to helping Blackpool’s continued economic development must now be a priority.

Elsewhere in the region, the new University of Cumbria opens its doors to students this year and will be vital to retaining talent in the region. Partners have been working hard for a number of years to build a stronger higher education framework for Cumbria in particular, and this year will see the realisation of the new University.

Finally, Liverpool begins the countdown to its European Capital of Culture celebrations with its 800th birthday in 2007. This year’s celebrations will set a strong precedent for the cultural programme of 2008. The city’s Capital of Culture accolade offers a unique opportunity to showcase both Liverpool and the Northwest to the UK and overseas and the Agency will be working closely with the Culture Company to ensure that we make the most of the economic benefits it provides.

Now that everyone in the region is working towards the priorities identified in the Regional Economic Strategy, we must focus our attention and our collective investment on making sure that they happen. These are exciting times for the Northwest. Let’s ensure that we seize these opportunities and build a truly world-beating region.

Bryan Gray, Chairman, February 2007

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THE THIRD DEGREE

JOHN STAGEMAN

Dr John Stageman is a senior executive (Vice-President) at AstraZeneca, a leader in the global pharmaceuticals industry with strong roots in the Northwest. Based in a world-class research environment at Alderley Park, Cheshire, he is currently spearheading the company’s move into the fast-growing biological medicines market.

He is also an influential figure on the Northwest Science Council.

AstraZeneca has a strong presence in the Northwest. How big is the company’s regional footprint?

It’s very significant. Alderley Park is our biggest Research & Development (R&D) centre worldwide. Of the 4,500 employed there, 3,500 are scientists and one in ten of those has a PhD so it’s a huge repository of scientific knowledge and expertise. It’s our largest global discovery centre for cancer but it’s also forging ahead with research into infection, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and inflammatory illness. Just down the road in Macclesfield we have another site

“IT ALWAYS FRIGHTENS ME THE AMOUNT OF MONEY WE INVEST EVERY DAY BUT DRUG DISCOVERY IS A COSTLY, HIGH-RISK BUSINESS.” JOHN STAGEMAN SENIOR EXECUTIVE ASTRAZENECA

employing around 2,500 people, many of whom are engaged in drug manufacture – our second largest supply facility worldwide. The Northwest is also an important global base for marketing and other strategic activities.

So you have a big impact on the regional economy?

Absolutely. A recent study on the company’s economic contribution to the UK makes fascinating reading. Allowing for the indirect effects of the company’s activities we support a total of 12,000 full time jobs in the Northwest, generate a turnover of £2.5 billion, a GVA of nearly £1.2 billion and employment income of £410 million. We also spent £172 million on buying goods and services on the region. It’s also worth noting that around £560 million of the company’s overall UK R&D expenditure of £749 million took place in the Northwest in 2004.

Alderley Park has a distinguished history of drug discovery. How did all this come about?

Leaders of ICI Dyestuffs Division in North Manchester had the bold vision just before the Second World War to see that there was a strategic future in pharmaceutical medicines and that led to the purchase of the former Stanley estate in 1950 to pursue that aim. But it was the invention of beta-blockers by the Nobel Prize winner Sir James Black that

really put the place on the map. Since then we have developed a string of world-leading cancer medicines including Nolvadex and Arimidex which have become gold standard treatments for breast cancer. Incidentally, it’s 50 years this year since we established our first R&D lab on the estate at Mereside.

That sounds like a good excuse for a celebration?

Certainly. There’ll be a series of celebratory events throughout 2007 themed around science and innovation. We shall be looking to establish commemorative links with outside organisations covering science and the arts.

We’ll be marking the occasion with events that highlight, for example, our 50 years in Cheshire and a half-century of contributing to patient health.

What will be the drivers of success in the future?

Innovation, collaboration and continued investment in people and highly competitive, specialised facilities. We have invested over £500 million in the Northwest in the last few years including £60 million on a new cancer research centre and £58 million on our Centre for Advanced Lead Discovery where we identify compounds to create tomorrow’s medicines.

It always frightens me the amount of money we invest every day but drug discovery is a costly, high-risk business. AstraZeneca

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accounts for one third of all private sector R&D investment in the Northwest and a quarter of all regional investment in R&D. What concerns us is the way public research expenditure in this region lags behind private investment. It’s completely the reverse in the south. The government invests a dominant share of its R&D expenditure in the Golden Triangle regions – London, Oxford and Cambridge – with industry the smaller player.

So we are lobbying Whitehall to think carefully about how to reverse that trend.

Is drug discovery getting easier or harder?

It’s probably more difficult than it used to be. The easier targets have been discovered.

The pharmaceutical industry is worried about its productivity because now it’s more costly and takes longer to develop new medicines.

Some people say it’s also less innovative.

That’s a major challenge for us. One of the answers is to seek more interaction with universities and small bio-companies. In the past we have been more reliant on our own internal efforts so we are now putting more effort and resources into externalisation and creating further links with outside groups.

How can regional institutions participate in this diversified R&D model?

As a global company we can only justify entering into collaborative agreements if our

prospective partners are globally competitive.

What Manchester has done under Alan Gilbert in building a big single university with clear focus on those key areas where it wants to be world-class is an excellent example. There has been a fantastic transformation and we are now working much more closely with them on cancer, biomarkers and breaking areas of science such as systems biology, non-invasive imaging and bioinformatics. We have also signed an agreement with the University of Liverpool to fund the UK’s first professorship dedicated to obesity research.

Do you share the concerns of the wider business community about skill shortages and educational deficiencies in the UK workforce?

We have several serious concerns. Science is not being portrayed as an attractive career option as effectively as it should be and consequently bright young people are going into the legal profession, finance and the media. Ultimately, this will have a serious knock-on effect on UK plc. Here in Cheshire, for example, we have recruited over 100 Science and Engineering Ambassadors (SEAS) from our staff to go into local schools to connect with specialist projects and communicate their enthusiasm for science to a young audience. The teaching of chemistry, or lack of it, is another worry. Alarm bells have

started ringing in the industry over the shortsighted, cost-driven closure of university chemistry departments and loudly so over the restriction of finance for practical chemistry at degree level. It’s not causing us a problem right now but we might not be able to say that in five years time. Finally it is quite clear to me that our recent expansion into biological medicines will severely test the availability of relevant specialists here in the UK. The company clearly has a strong social conscience. Where does it stand on environmental issues?

It’s enlightened self-interest to be concerned about the environment. R&D people tend to be a rebellious lot and would not come to work here at Alderley Park unless we were rightly concerned about reducing our carbon footprint and recycling our waste. We have rolled out a number of energy saving, waste reduction and green transport initiatives in Cheshire and at other sites. Recently our Cheshire sites won the ‘Best Environmental Practice’ award at the Northwest Business Environment Awards event. We have a strong belief that personal responsibility and local actions can reap huge global benefits.

For further information: www.astrazeneca.com

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BUSINESS NEWS US-owned Handleman, a leading supplier and merchandiser of home entertainment products, is creating 400 new jobs in Bolton to support an expansion of its UK operations. The investment has been secured with support from NWDA and partners including Bolton Council.

Canadian firm Organisation Metrics, which designs and sells software used in human resources management, is relocating its global head office to Liverpool City Centre, with help from the NWDA, the Merseyside Special Investment Fund, the Mersey Partnership and the DTI. The company is expected to employ 15 staff in its first year.

Two prominent figures from business and the trade union movement have been reappointed to the Board of the NWDA for a further three years. They are Joe Dwek, former Chief Executive and Executive Chairman of Bodycote, and Dave McCall, Regional Secretary of the TGWU and Chair of the North West TUC. Rugged Logic, a new company that is set to revolutionise the way businesses predict cashflow, has received over half a million pounds from the Merseyside Special Investment Fund, the NWDA and Business Liverpool. It has relocated from London to Liverpool.

Booths, the oldest family-owned and run grocery business in Britain, has been voted one of the world’s top 25 food heroes by an international academy of 2000 industry experts. The Northwestbased company achieved an impressive second place beating all its British competitors including Harrods and Fortnum and Masons.

Following the announcement by government regarding the new licence fee settlement, the BBC Trust revealed that the move to Salford would be affordable and approved the continuation of contractual negotiations to deliver the project. The move is estimated to benefit the regional economy by £1.5 billion and will bring with it 1,500 jobs.

WINDFALL HELPS Blackpool, East Pennine and Liverpool and Sefton are among the successful areas to have secured national government funding to promote enterprise and inward investment.

The Northwest raised its game in the second round of the government's Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) funding, winning £54.5 million or 37% of the £157 million on offer from the government for disadvantaged areas, far more than any other region.

In Pennine Lancashire, four local authorities are teaming up with the area's three professional football clubs in an innovative, sport-led programme to stimulate employment and a stronger enterprise culture.

Backed by a £22.3 million windfall from LEGI the partnership will piggyback on the area’s soccer heritage and infrastructure to engage residents who would normally shun mainstream business support structures.

One approach will be to convert unused space beneath the stands at Blackburn and Burnley, two of the clubs supporting the programme, into sheltered accommodation, or ‘enterprise havens’, for business start-ups. The other club involved is Accrington FC.

“ONE OF OUR AIMS IS TO MAKE SURE THAT PEOPLE ARE BETTER PREPARED FOR SELF-EMPLOYMENT.” ALAN CAVILL HEAD OF CORPORATE POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT BLACKPOOL MBC

Only £4 million of the funding package awarded to the four borough councils, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn and Pendle, will go on capital build projects. The rest will be used to support the growth of small businesses in an area where self-employment is viewed as a last resort.

Elsewhere in the region, Liverpool and Sefton, who submitted a joint bid, were awarded £21.4 million and Blackpool £10.8 million.

LEGI is a joint ten-year £300 million programme between the Department for Communities and Local Government, HM Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry and was first announced in the Chancellor’s 2005 Budget.

REGIONAL PRIORITIES The Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) worked closely with Government Office for the North West on formulating the bids, which reflect the priorities of the Regional Economic Strategy.

Steven Broomhead, the NWDA’s Chief Executive, said the awards “will really make a difference at grass root level by boosting employment and building

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ENTERPRISING COUNCILS sustainable communities.”

The Pennine Lancashire approach builds on the idea of football grounds as a new form of ‘village hall’ to reach a target population of 150,000, nearly a third of whom have an ethnic minority background.

Steve Hoyle, Assistant Director of Regeneration at Blackburn with Darwen said a radically different approach was needed to draw deprived communities into the enterprise culture.

“We looked at how we could use football to convey the enterprise message and talked to the three clubs who are already engaged in extensive outreach activities with the same audience we want to reach.”

Football – the area was the birthplace of the professional game – is a strong theme of Pennine Lancashire’s ‘Ten Great Goals’ bid proposal which was endorsed by Blackburn’s Manager Mark Hughes.

The other two Northwest LEGI winners have been equally imaginative in formulating programmes to change the lives and prospects of people living in England’s most deprived areas.

MIGRANT ENTERPRISE Blackpool aims to launch an ‘Enterprise Island’ competition with the winners qualifying for ‘Dragons Den’ type guidance and support to set up their own businesses.

The borough’s portfolio of projects includes an aviation and construction academy to train people from the town’s deprived wards for the estimated 500 new jobs that are likely to be created by the expansion of Blackpool International Airport.

Alan Cavill, Head of Corporate Policy and Development, said that the town once had one of the highest business start-ups rates outside London. “There is still a high business formation rate but an even higher failure rate and one of our aims is to make sure people are better prepared for self employment.”

Start-up support will also be directed at enterprise minded migrants in the town, mainly from Poland, to help them put down roots in the area and improve the local economy. Many of them currently work in the hospitality industry.

Liverpool and Sefton’s programme (SLEGI) is built around 18 projects within four work streams – enterprise in young people, enterprise

in adults, unlocking business potential and inward investment and franchising.

The target area – six core neighbourhoods of North Liverpool – is characterised by high unemployment (in some parts 6 out of 10 people are on work-related benefits). Self-employment is also low in the area and business density is less than half of that of the UK. SLEGI seeks to capitalise on opportunities in the nearby port area, from the huge physical regeneration of central Liverpool, the housing market and from the visitor economy.

Mike Taylor, Chief Executive of Business Liverpool and Chair of the SLEGI board, attributed the bid’s success to close collaboration between the two councils and a strong partnership with the private sector.

“The core area is seriously lagging behind the recent resurgence of the Liverpool City Region economy and there is a real danger that continuing economic and social problems in these neighbourhoods will threaten growth across the sub region.”

For further information: email: mark.booker@nwda.co.uk tel: 01925 400100 www.neighbourhood.gov.uk

BILLBOARD ICONS

Enterprise haven – Blackburn Rovers is one of three Pennine Lancashire clubs supporting the LEGI programme

When mother of three Sharon Helsby and husband Kevin joined St. Helens Chamber’s Entrepreneur Kickstart project they had no idea they would end up starring as billboard icons.

The couple launched their own exterior cleaning venture Eyesore Restore after attending a Chamber meeting about the advice and support available for business start-ups.

They have since become role models in a major advertising campaign across the borough to promote Kickstart, a core element of St Helens’ £13.4 million LEGI programme which has been running since April 2006.

“It was a big step to start our own business but we have never looked back. We really enjoy working together and it’s great for our children to see us making a go of it,” says Sharon.

The Chamber is working on 11 projects to boost enterprise activity in the borough’s most deprived wards. They range from securing a business commitment for every school in the town to establishing a new-build graduate greenhouse for occupation by 2008.

Aidan Manley, Head of Regeneration at

Big step – Sharon Helsby (left) and husband Kevin enjoy working together

St Helens MBC, said it was sensible to let the Chamber, one of the most successful in the region, deliver the programme because ”they speak the language of business and can provide the most appropriate answers for people starting up on their own.”

Nearly 380 jobs have been created in the first six months (against a full year’s target of 450) and 149 new businesses established with 50 women becoming self-employed.

Over 80 businesses have been connected to broadband and the support team is working with the University of Liverpool to set up a trading portal for the town.

For further information: tel: 01744 742000 www.sthelenschamber.com

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BUSINESS

AUTO INDUSTRY GEARS UP FOR A BETTER FUTURE With its elegant looks and state-of-the-art engineering, the Bentley is a byword for quality, a prestige car lovingly designed and built in the Northwest for the last 60 years.

Fine trim – finishing touches are applied to the craftsmen-built seats

Class act – the Continental GT coupe is a recent addition to the Bentley marque

Bentley is also one of the most famous names in automotive history, with a rich heritage and high standard of craftsmanship that comes with an exclusive price tag to match. Yet production staff at its Crewe factory are working flat out just to meet demand.

In four years Bentley has seen annual sales soar from 1,000 to nearly 9,000, thanks to a family of five new models that include the sleek Continental GT, its larger four-door saloon version, a GT convertible and an upgrade of the top-of-the-range Arnage.

Since it bought the company in 1998, VW has invested £500 million on factory infrastructure and developing new models.

This investment, says Christine Gaskill, Member of the Board – Personnel, has paid dividends, allowing the business to grow substantially.

“Bentley is known around the world as a manufacturer of prestige motor cars,” she explains. “Its renaissance in recent years has turned its Crewe base into a largely autonomous centre for engineering excellence and fine craftsmanship which is highly regarded within the motor industry.”

This emphasis on craftsmanship is epitomised by the fact that there are only two robots on the production line. Little surprise then that since VW acquired the cherished Bentley marque the workforce has swelled by 40%, to nearly 4,000.

However Bentley is far from the only success story in a sector that is worth £9 billion a year to the regional economy.

Leyland Trucks, part of the Paccar Group, are building over 14,000 vehicles a year at one of Europe's most advanced truck assembly facilities, while nearly 130,000 Astra cars and vans are produced annually at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port facility.

Another important milestone in the region’s car industry was reached by Merseyside following the launch of the Freelander 2, which has started rolling off the production line at Ford’s Halewood plant, the first time a Land

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Lean manufacturing – Jaguars and Freelanders roll off the same production line

Rover has been produced outside of the West Midlands.

When Ford acquired Jaguar in 2000 they invested over £400 million in Halewood, transforming the production line and introducing new ‘lean’ manufacturing processes.

GLOBAL BENCHMARK As a result, over the last three years the plant has received the highest score in a worldwide manufacturing audit of all Ford-owned plants, setting a global benchmark for the company.

Now a further multi-million pound investment means the Freelander is being produced alongside the Jaguar X-type, a move that has helped secure the long-term future of the factory and 2,400 jobs.

“Halewood's transformation was one of the most ambitious ever undertaken in the automotive industry,” says Thomas Klein, the plant’s Operations Director.

“Halewood is unique in having two different brands manufactured on the same production line and two vehicles of completely different architecture and no common component - it demonstrates Halewood's commitment to efficiency and flexibility."

The key to all these successes, says Norman Williams, head of the Northwest Regional Development Agency’s (NWDA) Automotive Sector Team, has been the willingness of companies to invest in the skills of the workforce and in the concept of lean manufacturing.

“These world-class manufacturers have taken a close look at their processes and implemented some outstanding initiatives around the principles of ‘lean’,” explains Williams. “It’s not the ‘dark art’ that many companies think - in the main it’s just a question of common sense.”

The Northwest is the second most important automotive region in the UK, with over 500 companies employing some 43,000 people.

As a result it’s become a base for some of the industry’s leading suppliers and Williams works closely with partners at the Department of Trade and Industry, the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS), and Business Links, to

ensure a co-ordinated programme of assistance for these companies too.

This has enabled suppliers to address a range of issues including manufacturing processes, energy costs and inefficiencies in supply chains – all factors that, if left unchallenged, will affect the cost of manufacturing.

The NWDA has further invested in the future of the sector by creating the Northwest Automotive Alliance (NAA), a cluster organisation, which champions engineering excellence and provides a focal point for the region's automotive sector.

Its industry-led approach has helped more than a hundred companies improve performance, launch new products, win new orders, and upskill their workforce.

Its Chairman, Stuart Heys, Managing Director of Leyland Trucks says the region has a deeprooted tradition in automotives and is well positioned from an infrastructure point of view.

“But more importantly, the Northwest has the right people to deliver a well co-ordinated and concise programme of assistance for companies with the foresight and the desire to stay ahead of the global game.”

It’s not just the big multinationals that have overhauled their production processes.

Accrington-based Piolax Manufacturing UK, which makes injection moulded components for the automotive industry has seen its productivity rise by 75% on the back of a visit by MAS’s industry-savvy practitioners.

The MAS team highlighted high levels of ‘wasted’ effort and then set to work with the company on developing lean processing techniques which have since been rolled out across the assembly area.

“The actual changes were quite simple and involved creating storage space for parts and improving product flow.” says Company Operations Director, Tony Dewhurst, “but the impact has been huge.”

For further information: Northwest Automotive Alliance tel: 01772 425446 www.nwautoalliance.com

SUPPLIER IS TOP PERFORMER One of the region’s most progressive automotive suppliers has demonstrated its world-class performance by winning one of the industry’s top accolades.

Performance Springs of Lytham St Annes beat off strong competition to secure the first-ever Northwest Automotive Alliance ‘Company of the Year’ award at a ceremony held at the International Convention Centre, Birmingham.

Based at the Queensway Industrial Estate where it employs over 40 people, the

company is the UK’s leading innovator in the field of high performance spring technology.

Judges singled out the firm’s determination to remain at the forefront of the sector through a combination of sustained investment in machinery and its workforce.

“Our industry is extremely competitive and we have made sure we are in a position where we can win new business and continue our expansion into key markets,” explains Managing Director Steve Williams.

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BUSINESS

RDA PRIORITIES FOR GOVERNMENT SPENDING Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) across the North are pressing the government to use the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) to refocus policy and investment to reinforce measures that will contribute to narrowing the £30 billion productivity gap between the North and London and the South East.

Under the banner of The Northern Way, the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), Yorkshire Forward and One NorthEast have collectively submitted a set of far-reaching proposals to accelerate the drive for greater prosperity.

They include incentives to encourage innovation, transport and connectivity improvements, measures to improve skill levels, and a Cabinet Committee for the North.

All are designed to secure greater levels of private investment, particularly in pan-regional projects and housing.

SPENDING PLANS The NWDA is also working with government to secure ongoing support for investment decisions such as the major BBC relocation to Manchester, the creation of a national nuclear laboratory with its HQ in the Northwest and the new University of Cumbria. It also makes a case for greater simplification of business support processes.

The CSR will set government spending plans for three years from 2008-09. Whitehall departments have indicated that the pot of

money for economic development is likely to decrease, with government having large commitments to meet in healthcare, education and overseas aid. A final outcome is not expected before the 2007 Budget.

INNOVATION GAPS “We are in a tighter fiscal climate and the Treasury has indicated it will not entertain any bids for new money so we must not adopt a shopping list approach,” explained Patrick White, the NWDA’s Director of Policy who coordinated the Northern Way submission and is leading the CSR input from all nine RDAs. “We have to focus our efforts on persuading government to remove the barriers to economic growth that exist in the North and to support effective joint working at a local level.

We have to maximise the resources we have and use them efficiently.”

In its submission the influential partnership urges the government to focus on six priorities to build a prosperous North. Transport and innovation are seen to be the areas that can have the biggest impact on the combined regions’ future competitiveness.

Ministers are being asked, for example, to support the establishment of a Northern Transport Development Fund to deliver “early win” projects.

The government has also been asked to adopt a three-point plan to fill gaps in the North’s innovation ‘ecosystem’ by strengthening and developing the wider region’s international research capacity,

stimulating business service innovation and building on knowledge economy locations such as Daresbury.

The Northern Way is also suggesting that government should: • implement measures pioneered in the Northwest to improve skills and get more people on Incapacity Benefit back into work • strengthen devolution at all levels for planning and decision making especially in relation to City Regions • improve the quality and variety of housing.

The three RDAs also believe that efficiency and accountability can be improved and strengthened by ensuring that key public sector targets are relevant to local and regional needs rather than just government departments by appointing a Cabinet Committee for the North or a Minister for the North.

Steven Broomhead, NWDA Chief Executive, said the CSR provided The Northern Way with an opportunity to advise government on the key investment locations in the North that will deliver the greatest return.

“We want government to continue working with us to strengthen the North’s key knowledge locations by building on our assets and drawing on lessons which have been successfully applied elsewhere in Europe and the world.”

For further information: email: patrick.white@nwda.co.uk tel: 01925 400100 www.thenorthernway.co.uk

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“WE WANT TO RUN OURSELVES AS A LEAN BUSINESS REFLECTING INTERNALLY WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE IN THE WIDER BUSINESS WORLD.” PETER WATSON MANAGING DIRECTOR NORTHWEST BUSINESS LINK

High fliers – aerospace is a target sector

IT hub – a contact centre will handle all communications

BUSINESS SUPPORT REORGANISED A new revitalised Business Link service for the region, centrally managed but delivered locally, is to be launched in the spring with the aim of improving growth and competitiveness in key sectors of the Northwest economy.

The new streamlined service will replace the existing five Business Link operations with a new head office and contact centre in Preston – manned into the evening seven days a week – and a large number of business advisers located around the region.

The changes are being introduced following a fundamental review of Business Link provision by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), which assumed full management of the service in April 2005.

With an annual income of £18 million and a staff of 330, the new organisation, branded as Northwest Business Link, will operate as an impartial, independent brokerage service and will align itself with the internationallycompetitive sectors and priorities outlined in the Northwest Regional Economic Strategy 2006.

The sectors include biomedical, energy and environmental technologies, advanced engineering and materials, food and drink,

digital and creative industries and professional and business services.

The overall aim, says Managing Director Peter Watson, is to raise the profile and perception of Business Link and increase understanding of what it can do. “There is a great misunderstanding about what it can do and we now have a wonderful opportunity to clarify that,” he explains.

“Restructuring will allow us to offer a robust and sustained level of service that is consistent throughout the region with one management team and one back-office function and it will also enable us to put more effort into the front-line part of the service.”

Business enquiries will be routed through a ‘universal gateway’ based on the national Information Diagnosis Brokerage (IDB) model, with the contact centre handling all communications, phone, web and email. Selfdiagnostic tools will be available on line.

Another strand of the service will be the target brokerage, a proactive operation staffed by some 200 business advisors - called target brokers’ - co-located with sub-regional partnerships, the various cluster organisations and possibly on science parks.

CLOSE MONITORING

Digital industries – another growth sector

Watson stresses that “anyone can walk through the universal gateway from the school leaver wanting to go into self employment to the chairman of a company that has been operating for fifty years. Nobody will be turned away.”

Northwest Business Link will not be delivering products and services but will quickly and seamlessly route requests for

Business priority – support will be offered to biomedical companies

guidance and business support to the most appropriate provider.

“We think the market is best able to deliver solutions,” says Watson who took up his duties in September to prepare the new service for launch on April 2, 2007.

“We will be working with accredited suppliers and they will be subject to close monitoring according to customer satisfaction criteria.”

Wholly owned by the NWDA with a private sector led-board, the new organisation will run on business-led principles with the aim of boosting business formation and making established companies more competitive.

Peter Watson sees the ‘fit for purpose’ restructuring as a logical necessity. “We want to run ourselves as a lean business reflecting internally what we want to achieve in the wider business world.”

He takes on the task of developing a slicker, more focused support service with a broad level of experience in the private sector, having worked in footwear manufacturing, the house building sector and the European and UK printing industry.

For further information: email: peter.watson@nwda.co.uk tel: 01925 644220 www.nwbl.co.uk (from April 2)

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BUSINESS

BIOCENTRE TO DEVELOP NEW MEDICINES A new ultra-clean production facility that uses living organisms to develop tomorrow’s medicines has been officially opened in Speke, Liverpool, further strengthening the region’s world-class reputation for biopharmaceutical innovation.

The National Biomanufacturing Centre (NBC) will help new and existing companies move good research ideas from the laboratory to the global marketplace within the right regulatory framework.

Located on the Estuary Business Park, the centre has attracted major overseas interest and has been described as a “benchmark and showcase for British science,” by Dr

Crawford Brown, Chief Executive of Eden Biodesign, the NBC’s commercial operator.

Funding for the £34 million project, which has been hailed as the first of its kind in the world, has been provided by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), the EU’s Objective One programme and the Department of Trade and Industry.

Some of industry’s big corporate players including AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Avecia have provided helpful advice on setting up the facility.

Although biologics, which includes biopharmaceuticals and vaccines, have been around for 25 years it’s only recently they

have become viable as commercial products.

They currently account for 17% (50 billion dollars) of the medicines market but industry experts predict their share could rise to 70% in the future.

MISSING LINK Chemical compounds are used to make drugs in traditional pharmaceutical manufacture whereas the NBC’s processes use living cells – mammalian, viral and microbial-like mini factories to make biologic products.

The centre provides a full range of services necessary to take a novel biopharmaceutical from proof of concept through to small batch production for early–stage clinical trials.

Its client focus will be small and medium size companies (SMEs), research and charity organisations, the universities and the NHS. The NBC was borne out of an idea in the late 1990s by Professor Julian Crampton, a former Liverpool academic, and has been brought to fruition largely through the dedication and drive of Dr. Linda Magee, Head of Bionow, the Northwest Biotechnology cluster organisation established by the NWDA. Her contribution won widespread praise at the opening ceremony.

She describes the centre as the “missing link” that should speed up the lab-to-market process. “It’s a beacon for the wider

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AWARDS FOR BIO HEROES

State of the art – the National Biomanufacturing Centre is a showcase for British science

pharmaceutical community in the region and we expect it to have an influential role in attracting inward investment to the Northwest.”

An Access Fund of just under £3 million has been established to support the work of the NBC and is already assisting SMEs purchase services from Eden Biodesign. Grants of up to £70,000 are available for eligible companies with higher allocations for those located in Merseyside.

One recipient company, Onyvax, has started work on an ovarian cancer vaccine while a second successful applicant, Aquapharm, is using the NBC’s expertise to develop products from marine sources.

Centre of excellence – technicians work in an ultra-clean environment

The NBC will enhance Liverpool’s drive to become one of Europe’s premier biopharmaceutical centres. Around 2,000 people are currently employed in the sector in south Liverpool, the highest concentration anywhere in the EU.

EXEMPLAR PROJECT Opening the state-of-the-art building, NWDA Chairman Bryan Gray, a former chemistry graduate, called it one of the first “building blocks” in an emerging industry.

“It’s an exemplar project of co-operation between the public and private sectors”.

Apart from offering advice and guidance to early-stage companies about moving from research into development, Eden Biodesign aims to expand training opportunities with a view to doubling its workforce to 100 over the next two years.

It is joining forces with Liverpool John Moores University to establish a Bioprocess Summer School in 2007 to resolve some of the skills deficiencies in the sector. The partners hope to move towards an apprenticeship in Bioprocessing that can be rolled out across the UK. For further information: email: linda.magee@nwda.co.uk tel: 01925 400100 www.bionow.co.uk

Medical researcher Dr Stephen Richardson of the University of Manchester has developed a treatment for lower back pain using the patient’s own stem cells which could replace the use of strong painkillers or surgery.

Pre-clinical trials are due to start in 2007 and are expected to rapidly yield a marketable product. The breakthrough, achieved with the collaboration of a German biotechnology company and renowned spinal surgeons, promises huge cost savings for the NHS. Dr Richardson’s work earned him the accolade of ‘Northwest Young Biotechnologist of the Year’ at the 2006 Northwest Biotechnology Awards, organised by Bionow, the NWDA regional support group.

The awards, which are supported by commercial sponsors, including AstraZeneca, Avecia, Nature Publications, Pannones and Addleshaw Goddard showcase the very best of biotechnology in region.

Three other award winners also have strong links with the University of Manchester. They include Professor Mark Ferguson, 51, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Renovo, who was named as the ‘Bionow Personality of the Year.’

ACADEMIC SPIN OUT Renovo aims to be the first to market with a pharmaceutical drug to prevent and reduce scarring.

Many of the new discovery companies springing up across the region have their roots in academia. Myconostica, the ‘Biotechnology Start Up of the Year’ is a spin out from Manchester University specialising in fast and very sensitive molecular diagnostic tests for life-threatening respiratory fungal infections.

Dr. Chris Ward of the university’s School of Dentistry won the ‘Bioprocessing Project of the Year’ award for his work to develop a novel method of preventing human embryonic stem cells from forming into different types of cell.

Farfield Scientific of Crewe, which uses optical measurement technology to manufacture instruments for use in drug discovery and the mechanisms behind diseases, was named as ‘Biotechnology Company of the Year’.

Farfield employs 21 and exports 60-70% of its products.

The award of ‘Biotechnology Project of the Year’ went to Manchester-based DxS for ‘Therascreen’, an innovative genetic analysis product to identify patients who will respond well to certain cancer drug therapies.

Professor Mark Ferguson – Bionow Personality of the Year

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SKILLS AND EDUCATION NEWS Scientists, engineers and mathematicians at the University of Manchester have been given a new type of research environment with the opening of the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (MIB). The £38 million facility will enable up to 80 research groups to apply novel approaches to finding new therapies for diseases such as cancer, meningitis and cystic fibrosis.

Princes Park in Liverpool and Birkenhead on the Wirral are the latest areas to benefit from Northern Way initiatives to drive down the number of people claiming Incapacity Benefit in the North. The project, which will build on a successful scheme in Knowsley, will target 3,000 claimants in the new areas.

Macclesfield entered a new era of high quality education provision with the official opening of the European Centre for Aerospace Training (ECAT), the first building to be completed on the town’s £38 million Learning Zone development, which is receiving £5 million funding from the NWDA. Bolton Technical Innovation Centre (TIC), the UK’s first ‘Junior Incubator’, has been officially opened by the Princess Royal.

Developed with the support of the NWDA, the TIC has been created to nurture innovation and enterprise among young people in Northwest schools. It is the first of its kind in the UK. Manchester Metropolitan University is set to expand its successful New Entrepreneurship Scholarship scheme after its Centre for Enterprise won £1.2 million of additional funding. It will enable up to 400 people in local communities to attend three-month courses to learn how to convert their business ideas into reality.

Professor John Wilson, a qualified accountant, has joined the University of Salford as Head of the new Salford Business School, which was formed in August from four existing Schools. He has previously worked at the University of Teesside, Liverpool John Moores University and Lancashire County Council.

CULTURE CAMPUS LINK TO CREATIVE CAREERS When multi-media arts student Nik Bowler graduated from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), he was one of only a handful of his contemporaries to stay and work in the city.

That was in 2003 when Nik, from Newcastle on Tyne, joined Mocha, a multi-media production company established by two earlier LJMU graduates.

“There were only two or three of us from my course who stayed in Liverpool,” says the designer and animator who completed a summer placement with Mocha before his final year. “A few wanted to try for London but it’s a difficult time when you finish university.

If people don’t find a job fairly quickly, many move back home with their parents and start from there.”

This is one of the drivers behind Liverpool’s new Culture Campus, officially launched this month, which aims to “inspire, support and enable” the city’s top quality graduates to stay in the area to develop its cultural sector and wider creative economy.

Initially funded with £75,000 of European Objective One funding and £33,000 from both Liverpool University and LJMU, the Campus also sets out to help SME development in the cultural and creative industries sector.

At a time when public policy experts are acknowledging the value of ‘creativity’ in the competition to stay ahead in the global economy, the highly-specialist web-based Campus aims to add a new dimension to the city’s cultural success.

Supported by the city’s Tate, Biennial and FACT, the Campus plans to assist their growth and development through the provision of new talent.

“The new Campus wants to ensure that Liverpool is the place to be for graduates and post-graduates who want to build a career in the creative industries,” says Liz Lacey, Director of Culture Campus.

“Many students made the decision to come to Liverpool because of next year’s (2008) European Capital of Culture and have expectations of making a career here.

We want to improve the chances of them staying in the city – as well as supporting SMEs in the same sector to develop and attract new talent.”

Concentrating initially on the visual arts, it plans to broaden its scope to include music and other art forms, with the support of Liverpool’s Everyman/Playhouse theatres, the Philharmonic, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Walker Art Gallery and the World Museum.

Two early practical projects will involve setting up a ‘dating agency’ to link students

with work experience providers and a system of bursaries and seedcorn funding to enable organisations moving in to the city to support and invest in the cultural sectors.

Professor Jennifer Latto, the Northwest Regional Development Agency’s Higher Education (HE) Adviser and a member of the Culture Campus Board, explains the thinking behind the project.

“The idea is to link together all the work going on in Higher Education and in the arts organisations in Liverpool so Culture Campus becomes the first port of call for anyone who wants to set up projects and find particular expertise and appropriately trained staff in the very specialist cultural and creative industries.”

LMJU, which has announced plans for the Northwest’s first Screen School, will build on cultural education provision in the city by introducing two new masters’ programmes – New Media Curating and Cultural Leadership – in September 2007.

For further information: email: jennifer.latto@nwda.co.uk tel: 01925 400100

Arts hub – FACT has pledged support for Culture Campus

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“THE NORTHWEST IS NOW THE ONLY UK REGION TO HAVE THE FULL RANGE OF TRAINING OFFERED BY THE LEARNING AND SKILLS COUNCIL AND HIGHER EDUCATION.” DR CELIA BRIGG PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR (SKILLS) NWUA

Ice cool – Salford Design student Graham Patrick with prototype equipment for the new sport, Xtreme Ice.

Owzat – coaching aid for cricket

UNIVERSITY DRIVE TO HELP INDUSTRY Pathfinder, a new skills project aimed at developing higher education tailored to employers’ needs, is giving the Northwest “another chance to stand out” for its range of training opportunities.

The region has been chosen by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) as one of three areas to pilot the £4 million initiative.

This now means that Northwest employers can access skills training for their workforce via a brokerage service ranging from basic literacy and numeracy right through to top level post-graduate learning.

Dr Celia Brigg, Project Manager and Assistant Director (Skills) of the North West Universities Association (NWUA) which is leading Pathfinder, says: “The Northwest is now the only UK region to have the full range of training offered by the Learning and Skills Council and Higher Education – from Train to Gain through to the higher level skills.”

Supported by the Northwest Regional Development Agency, Pathfinder will develop a database of existing HE provision to identify gaps, and a brokerage system using existing regional brokers, who have been trained in HE.

The NWUA has already started work on intelligence gathering to establish the higher level skills needs in four sectors: advanced engineering and materials, construction, digital and creative industries and business and professional services.

Dr Brigg says: “We understand there is a need for specific technical skills and management and leadership qualifications which are not merely generic, but specific to particular sectors.”

SPECIALISED COURSES She says that in line with government policy, Pathfinder will attempt to achieve a step-change in the HE sector, encouraging universities to deliver some courses more flexibly, including on employers’ sites, supported by online learning.

The region’s universities are already responding to employer skills needs by introducing specialised degree courses, often with input from business and industry.

Salford, for example, received help from Adidas, Umbro and Reebok in shaping the content of a sport equipment design course.

A dramatic growth in digital marketing spend has prompted Manchester Metropolitan University Business School to

launch a BA (Hons) degree in Digital Marketing and Communications, again with support from industry practitioners.

NUCLEAR ENGINEERING Lancaster has become one of the first universities to launch a degree course (MSc) in Decommissioning and Environmental Clean-Up, a move that should help small and medium size firms in Cumbria exploit the opportunities created by the £70 billion cleanup process.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is lending its support by funding a number of post-graduate scholarships for part-time industry-based students, recognition of Lancaster’s excellence in nuclear engineering. The course will be delivered in partnership with the Westlakes Research Institute in Cumbria.

The Pathfinder initiative comes at a time when the government is driving forward its ten-year strategy for science and innovation and emphasising the need for closer links between HE and employers.

For further information: email: cbrigg@nwua.ac.uk tel: 0161 234 8880 www.nwua.ac.uk

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PEOPLE AND JOBS NEWS Infrastructure to support the development of a business park on Edge Lane in Merseyside is set to create 150 temporary construction jobs. The development of the site, which received £4.6 million from the NWDA, is ultimately expected to generate around 1,000 jobs with the attraction of science and technology based companies to the region.

Carlisle is moving ahead with the first phase of an ambitious renaissance strategy after being given £1 million of kickstart funding from the NWDA to encourage business investment and develop the city’s tourism potential.

Local residents are being invited to help shape the future of the former Bickershaw Colliery site in Leigh.

English Partnerships has announced funding of nearly £17 million to develop a country park which will complement an approved new NWDA-led neighbourhood scheme around the canal basin on the southern part of the site.

Construction has started on a new £3.5 million development to bring flexible, short term business space to Ellesmere Port. Grant-assisted by the NWDA, the Evans Business Centre on the Pioneer Business Park, Ellesmere Port, will provide start-ups and small businesses with 23 offices and 18 workshops.

BakeMark UK, the country’s largest producer of bakery ingredients and frozen bakery products is expanding production capacity workforce at its Bromborough manufacturing facility after being offered a package of aid from the NWDA and partners. The investment will create 20 new jobs and prevent production being transferred overseas.

Measures to introduce more flexible working across the region are being championed following the establishment of the Northwest Flexible Working Group. Public and private sector-led, the group will be charged with delivering a strategy which aims to benefit both employers and employees throughout the Northwest.

CONFIDENCE RISING IN EAST MANCHESTER It used to be an area of empty factories, abandoned homes, high benefits dependency and few opportunities. Today East Manchester is a brave new world of well-designed housing, world-class sporting facilities, rising educational aspirations and soon home to the UK’s first regional casino.

In the six years since the urban regeneration company (URC) New East Manchester (NEM) set about rejuvenating the city’s old industrial heartland, over £800 million of public and private money has been invested in the area triggering a transformation as impressive as the city centre renaissance.

Projects are underway in 15 of the 17 target neighbourhoods with 3,400 new homes completed and another 6,000 in the pipeline.

Over 3,000 jobs have been created or safeguarded and local schools are driving up educational standards.

The holistic regeneration of a complex area of 1,900 hectares in size – five times as large as the city centre – has earned high praise from Professor Michael Parkinson, an international authority on cities, in a mid-term evaluation of NEM activities, “The success of New East Manchester tells us a lot about how we should manage our hard-pressed urban areas in future.

This is not only a fine example of best practice but raises the bar for urban regeneration,” he observes.

NEM is a partnership venture between Manchester City Council, the Northwest Regional Development Agency and English Partnerships. It was established in 2000 with an initial 10-year lifespan although the city council has always regarded East Manchester as a 20-year project.

SUSTAINED COMMITMENT The NWDA has pledged to invest £120 million in the area’s renaissance of which £70 million has been spent. The overall cost of bringing economic and social stability to the area is estimated at over £2 billion.

Tom Russell, NEM’s Chief Executive, says the message from the evaluation report was

that good progress had been made on the delivery of physical change and “normalising” the area’s economic profile but recovery was fragile and still needed sustained commitment from public sector partners.

“One of the threats we face is complacency.

We are pleased with the progress made but know it is still too early to regard the job as done. It can easily slide back to its former state.”

In his detailed report, Professor Parkinson highlighted the huge challenges facing NEM when it began to bring the branding concept of “the new town in the city” to reality.

The old metal-bashing area had lost 60% of its employment between 1975-85, and the housing market had collapsed. It also had a high unemployment rate with 52% of people on benefit, high crime, poor health, inadequate transport links and a low skills base.

Building on the legacy of the Commonwealth Games, which has left the area with a world-class sporting infrastructure, the URC and its partners have scored a string of notable commercial and community successes.

One “incredibly important” milestone, according to Russell, was securing a major investment by Fujitsu in a new UK HQ on the flagship Central Park.

“It’s given the area a modern IT employment profile and the more of these investments we

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“VITAL INVESTMENT LIKE THIS IS DESPERATELY NEEDED TO GUARANTEE A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR EAST MANCHESTER. WE KNOW A REGIONAL CASINO WILL DELIVER ENORMOUS REGENERATION BENEFITS.”

State-of-the-art venue – Visualisation of the casino development at East Manchester

TOM RUSSELL CHIEF EXECUTIVE NEW EAST MANCHESTER

get the more East Manchester will be seen as a good location for modern businesses”.

The 182-hectare (450 acres) business park is already geared up for the arrival of Metrolink (in 2010-11) following completion of a £36 million Gateway transport interchange.

Ask: Akeler Developments has completed 275,000 sq ft (25,547 sq m) of new office space out of a projected 1.4 million sq ft (130,000 sq m) and has begun work on a further 43,350 sq ft (4,027 sq m) of speculative space.

East Manchester is a richly patterned canvas of physical, economic and social renewal with dozens of projects completed, at the construction stage or in the planning pipeline.

They range from new shopping centres, new schools and health facilities to major new housing schemes and an innovative use of heritage assets, such as Ancoats, the Ashton Canal and Gorton Monastery.

NEM has gone for very strong architectural statements - functional rather than iconic - to change the perception of east Manchester. House builders are being urged to raise their design standards to provide a different but better type of housing than that found elsewhere.

IMPROVED SCHOOLS Lovell and Gleason, the two main house builders in Beswick, one of the early renewal projects, are now selling new homes for up to £250,000. Over 9,000 new homes across the

area have been completed or are in various stages of construction or refurbishment. Two thirds of buyers are believed to be from across the city region or elsewhere.

Education is another measure of progress with attainment levels moving up to be on a par with the Manchester average compared to 10% below in 2000. Two of the area’s primary schools were among the top five most improved schools in the country.

Russell is confident the public and private sectors are on track to deliver investment worth more than £2 billion over the next 10-20 years.

In its recommendation to government, the Casino Advisory Panel based its decision to award the regional casino licence to East Manchester on the area's "great promise" as a test bed for social impact and regeneration need. If approved by government, the decision could give the go-ahead for over £265 million investment in a major leisure and entertainment development, creating 2,700 jobs and a range of community facilities.

“Our success will be measured in our redundancy,” says Russell, “The sooner we can withdraw and let the private sector and market forces take the reins the happier we shall be.”

For further information: www.neweastmanchester.com

CONTRIBUTING TO SUCCESS New East Manchester is adding value to the overall economic success of the city, according to Professor Michael Parkinson’s interim evaluation of the URC’s performance. Achievements in the period up to March 2006 include: Jobs – the area is outperforming national and regional trends on job growth rates with 3131 jobs created against a lifetime target of 10,000; NEM is performing well on safeguarding jobs reaching 82% of its target.

Land – NEM has serviced 75% of the land identified in its lifetime targets; it has also achieved more than half its target for new or upgraded floor space.

Housing – over 3,400 homes have been completed and there are up to a further 15,000 anticipated new builds. At this rate NEM should reach its original target of 12,500 new homes by 2010.

Morale – satisfaction levels among residents is rising; in the Beacons New Deal for Communities area 60% of residents thought their neighbourhood was getting better in 2005 compared to 17% in 1999.

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PEOPLE AND JOBS “THERE IS A PENT-UP DEMAND FROM PROFESSIONAL FIRMS WANTING TO CONSOLIDATE IN QUALITY SPACE AND BOOST THEIR GROWTH POTENTIAL.” JIM GILL CHIEF EXECUTIVE LIVERPOOL VISION

LIVERPOOL BUILDS Rising private sector confidence in Liverpool’s ability to become a prosperous, competitive city-region is helping to transform its retail and commercial office core, sparking a building boom without parallel in the last half century.

Cranes crowd the skyline as developers, construction companies, fund managers and public agencies step up the £2.5 billion physical and economic regeneration of the waterfront and central business and shopping districts.

Take-up levels in the city centre office market in 2005 reached a record high of nearly 500,000 sq ft (46,451 sq m), an increasing proportion of which is new-build.

Rentals have also risen from £14 to £20 per sq ft over the past five years and investor demand has driven capital growth faster than any other provincial city.

“On the basis of headline rents and yields, the capital value of new office space has doubled in that period,” enthuses Jim Gill, Chief Executive of Liverpool Vision, the Urban Regeneration Company (URC) charged with coordinating the city centre’s recovery.

Property consultants GVA Grimley report that Liverpool has outstripped other UK cities in rental growth and expects 1.15 million sq ft (106,838 sq m) of new or refurbished space to come to market in the next four years with demand matching supply.

are taking advantage of the opportunities being offered.”

Liverpool Vision was the first URC to be established by the government in 1999 in its quest for strategic leadership and better integration of resources to bring about an urban renaissance.

The company’s public sector funding partners are Liverpool City Council, the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and English Partnerships. The NWDA contribution to Vision’s three-year rolling business plan will peak at £31 million in the current financial year.

Commercial development is now much less dependent on public gap funding. Grosvenor Estates forged ahead with its £920 million Liverpool One retail and associated leisure and residential development without any public funding. The 1.6 million sq ft (148,644 sq m) scheme, which is due to open in Spring 2008, will double the city’s existing retail area.

Grosvenor’s willingness to invest, says Gill, has been influenced by the URC’s broader plan

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP Much of the restored confidence, suggests Gill, stems from Liverpool’s Vision’s broader planning strategy for the central business district. “Five years ago Liverpool was just not on the investment radar for national developers or institutional investors. Now they

Good company – the new Museum of Liverpool will take its place alongside the Three Graces

for the city centre and the commitment of Vision’s partners to seeing the regeneration plan through to completion. “Grosvenor are long-terms investors – they can see Liverpool has a long-term future.”

Gill and his team are particularly pleased with the progress being made to reshape the city’s commercial district, again with diminishing pump-prime funding from public sector partners.

In 2001 Liverpool Vision devised a threephase strategy to kick-start speculative office development, then to create a new expanded commercial district in the area bounded by Old Hall Street and Pall Mall, to the north of the city’s traditional commercial area. Low rental levels had provided little or no incentive to invest in speculative schemes and the existing stock gave only limited opportunities to revitalise the market.

Support was pledged for three stand-alone schemes totalling 425,000 sq ft (39,483 sq m); the Beetham development at 101 Old Hall Street (let to Unisys and the Passport Office),

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Construction boom – Liverpool is a 21st century city in the making

BRIGHT FUTURE Shepborough Developments’ City Square project (let to the Department of Constitutional Affairs) and Rumford Investments’ Unity scheme in Chapel Street, which announced its first letting to Ernst & Young in December 2006.

Occupier response has been such that the grant aid for the first two schemes has either be repaid in full or was never taken up. The Unity development, which required £10 million of public funding (£5 million from the NWDA), largely because of adverse ground conditions, was completed in November 2006.

Gill is bullish about the market’s performance. “We have not seen this level of commercial development in Liverpool for over 50 years. There is a pent-up demand from professional firms wanting to consolidate in quality space and boost their growth potential.”

VIABLE FUTURE The main occupiers, developers and investors in the new commercial district are demonstrating their commitment to the area by creating the Liverpool Commercial District Partnership. Working with Liverpool Vision and other public agencies, the partnership will work on improving the management and marketing of the area.

“They are taking responsibility for the future well-being of the area because they believe it has a viable future – five years ago that would never have happened,” explains Gill.

Rising residential values are another measure of how far the city has progressed.

All the £150 million funding for the Arena and Convention Centre at Kings Waterfront is coming from the public sector but a third or more of that is expected to be recouped from residential, commercial and leisure

development of the rest of the site.

The first phase residential development, a joint venture scheme by David McLean and City Lofts is due on site in March. Hotel development for Jury’s Inn and Stalybridge Suites will be completed by Spring 2008.

Gill argues that the regeneration of the city centre waterfront, and the retail and commercial expansion are merely helping Liverpool to catch up with lost opportunity brought about by 40 years of economic stagnation.

Liverpool Vision will shape more of its future programme, he says, around the fundamentals of wealth and job creation with the likely focus shifting towards the areas around the two universities, Hope Street and the fast developing Baltic ‘independent’ district.

Together with other Liverpool agencies – Liverpool Land Development Company and Business Liverpool – Liverpool Vision is working with the City Council on proposals for a new, single economic regeneration company to drive the pace of change in the city even faster. It is expected to be operational by April 2008.

“The debate now is how we rack up performance, how we structure an organisation to meet these challenges. Each of the partners is signed up for change and we will have a much clearer idea of where we are going by the end of the financial year.”

For further information: tel: 0151 707 8007 www.liverpoolvision.co.uk

SETTING THE STANDARDS Liverpool’s business growth potential has attracted major investment from the English Cities Fund, which is currently building the largest Grade A office scheme in the city for several decades. The first office building is already pre-let to Hill Dickinson.

The St. Paul’s Square scheme will provide a centrepiece for the new commercial district and will set new standards in terms of quality design, public realm and energy efficiency. Completion of the £100 million first phase (50 apartments, a car park and 130,000 sq ft (12,077 sq m) building is expected in April 2007.

The fund was set up in the aftermath of the seminal Urban Task Force report by English Partnerships, Legal and General

and AMEC to bring institutional investment into Assisted Areas.

Its Chief Executive Lesley Chalmers predicts the three-phase scheme, when fully developed, will rival the quality of Spinningfields in Manchester and Brindley Place, Birmingham. “It will integrate leisure, retail, living and work environments into a single prestigious development.”

The scheme on a former Littlewoods site is office led but will include restaurants, banking and other facilities as well as high-quality apartments. “We expect it to have a development value of over £100 million and may well exceed 400,000 sq feet of mixed floor use,” says Chalmers.

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INFRASTRUCTURE NEWS NorwePP, a public private sector partnership, has been launched by the Northwest Regional Development Agency and Ashtenne Industrial Fund to manage and develop the Agency’s £140 million portfolio of commercial premises. The joint venture will hold 42 estates, mostly in Merseyside and West Cumbria.

Manchester Airport has been named as the Best UK Airport in the British Travel Awards 2006. More than 100,000 passengers and travel professionals voted in the awards, which were presented at Battersea Park, London. It was the airport’s sixth award in 2006.

More derelict and underused land at Birkenhead is to be transformed into public recreation space and community woodland after the NWDA agreed to invest a further £2.7 million in the ‘Newlands at Bidston Moss’ project. The money will be used to develop a further 28 hectares enlarging the woodland area to 68 hectares.

Merseytravel has submitted plans for a new £10 million Pier Head Ferry Terminal which it hopes will be completed in Spring 2008. The low-rise design has been developed in consultation with Liverpool City Council, English Heritage and World Heritage officers and preserves the view of the city’s world famous Three Graces skyline.

Urban renewal specialists the Langtree Group have been announced as preferred developer for Kingston House in Liverpool, an NWDA-owned 1960s office building. The scheme will create a 10-12 storey landmark office development with active retail or leisure uses at street level.

5

KINGSWAY SET TO CONQUER PROPERTY MARKET After years in the planning pipeline Kingsway, Rochdale, has reached a new milestone with the launch of a bold marketing campaign to promote the strategic 170-hectare (450 acre) site as a unique location for tomorrow’s industries.

Backed by a series of 11 abstract illustrations by graphic artist Andy Barker, the development partners began a national promotional push as the first occupiers pledged themselves to the new business park.

“This colourful interpretation of what Kingsway has to offer is a new approach to creating a special identity for the site – it’s like a modern-day Bayeux Tapestry,” observes Rob Green, the Northwest Regional Development Agency’s Operations Director for the site.

“We are trying to show that Kingsway is different to anything on the market in terms of size, connectivity, design, sustainability and the package of business support on offer to companies moving there.”

Located between Oldham and Rochdale, the project is a joint venture between the

NWDA, which is the largest landowner and biggest public investor, Rochdale MBC, Rochdale Development Agency and Wilson Bowden Developments.

Kingsway, one of the region’s 25 strategic sites, has retained its grant aid status in the recent redrawing of the Assisted Areas map.

It has outline planning permission for 250,000 sq m (3 million acres) of industrial space, 27,000 sq m (296,000 sq ft) of offices, 22.000 sq m (243,000 sq ft) of quality hotel, leisure and retail and 300 homes.

When fully developed in 10-15 years the park will have a projected employment base of 7,500 people, many of them in target growth sectors such as advanced manufacturing, digital and media.

“We are taking a very holistic approach to developing the site,” explains Green. “There will be a crèche within a village hub, community transport provision and a green travel plan.”

The partners are working closely with potential employers to identify their staffing

Funding is being made available by the NWDA to support growth at regional airports, attract new carriers and improve international connectivity.

The new £6.5 million Air Services Development Fund Alternative Measures programme will help Liverpool, Manchester, Blackpool and Carlisle airports to market themselves internationally.

New business landscape – an aerial view of the Kingsway site

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“WE ARE TRYING TO SHOW THAT KINGSWAY IS DIFFERENT TO ANYTHING ON THE MARKET IN TERMS OF SIZE, CONNECTIVITY, DESIGN AND BUSINESS SUPPORT.”

5

ROB GREEN KINGSWAY OPERATIONS DIRECTOR NWDA

and skills needs, with local communities to encourage them to take up training opportunities (bursary grants of up to £1,000 are available), with colleges to develop appropriate courses, and with schools to raise career aspirations from an early age.

Two local companies have provided developers with a confidence boost by signalling intent to move there. Vinden Scientific, an Oldham-based manufacturer of test equipment for the pharmaceutical industry, will take one of the first four speculative units due to be completed by late summer.

Rochdale-based Zen Internet has also indicated it will invest in a new headquarters operation on the business park to cater for future expansion. Founded by high-tech entrepreneur Richard Tang, the company currently employs 200 people on three separate sites in the town.

PLANNING CHALLENGE Phase One of the £400 million project, due for completion in April 2007, will deliver the site utilities, a remodelled Junction 21 giving direct access to the M62, and a new spine road linked to the A664 Rochdale Ring Road.

It will also make available the first six development plots, one of which is the subject of detailed discussions related to a hotel and leisure development.

The site is a mix of former low-grade farmland, old industrial land and marsh. Its potential was recognised as early as 1945 but it only appeared on the planning horizon in the 1980s and it was not until the 1990s that the Kingsway Partnership was formed.

The project has faced numerous

challenges including uncertainty over the Metrolink extension to Oldham and Rochdale.

This has now been resolved with the park having a dedicated stop when the network expansion is completed in 2011.

WINNING FORMULA The NWDA secured a Compulsory Purchase Order for the site in 2004. Most of the Agency’s £31 million investment in the project has been used to fund infrastructure works with marketing and recruitment support also provided.

A key 23-hectare (53 acres) site with outline planning permission for 69.883 sq metres (750,000 sq ft) of business space in Phase Two has been earmarked by the Agency for strategic investment capable of delivering up to 2,000 jobs.

Rochdale Council recently gave planning approval for Phase Two infrastructure works

along with detailed approval for the first six plots in Phase One. Construction work on the first four buildings started in January.

Jane Dobie, Development Manager for Wilson Bowden Developments, believes Kingsway’s design, amenities, and direct link to one of the UK’s main distribution corridors will prove a winning formula with a wide range of investors.

“We are extremely pleased with the level of interest already received and if things continue as they are we would expect the majority of Phase 1 to be allocated within the next 12-18 months.”

For further information: email: rob.green@nwda.co.uk tel: 01706 868999 www.kingswayuk.com

RATTY TAKES A HOLIDAY Developers are spending £100,000 creating new habitats for Kingsway’s wildlife. The work should help to ensure the survival in the Northwest of the water vole, which has been on the verge of extinction.

Over 30 voles were captured on the site and removed to Chester Zoo where a successful breeding programme has raised their number to over 200. The animals will be released back into waterways at Kingsway in Spring 2008.

A protected species, the water vole was immortalised as Ratty in Kenneth Graham’s Wind in the Willows. Wild mink have decimated the native population leaving them on the edge of extinction.

“The population decline has been catastrophic, that’s why the breeding

programme is so important, “ explains Mike Jordan, Chester Zoo’s Head of Mammals and Birds. Some of the voles will be used to repopulate waterways around Chester and other parts of the Northwest.

Mud snails found on the site have been removed to Martin Mere for protection and will eventually be reintroduced into the marshy areas found on the site when it is safe to do so.

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QUALITY OF LIFE NEWS

Burnley’s tourism sector has been boosted by the opening of ‘Singing Ringing Tree’, the latest of the Panopticon sculptural landmarks, which are being sited at strategic vantage points in East Lancashire. Funded by the NWDA and the Lancashire Economic Partnership, the landmark has been made from galvanised steel pipes carefully tuned to provide its own musical sound.

JANUARY 08: Opening ceremony at the city’s new 10,000-seater arena on the King’s Dock.

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

APRIL: Two Viennese-style balls, with music by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; opening of Gustav Klimt exhibition at Tate, Liverpool Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota

New visitor facilities are being provided at Grizedale Forest, Cumbria, as part of a £5 million partnership programme to upgrade and expand the park’s visitor centre. Improvements include IT facilities for training and community use, new craft activity areas and more outdoor sculptures.

FEBRUARY: European Senior Boxing Championships in the new 10,000-seat Liverpool Arena

DECEMBER 07: The Liverpool Nativity, a BBC live production from a variety of locations around Merseyside

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Three iconic works of Northwest art will receive grant support from The Northern Way as part of a £14 million cultural programme to change people’s perceptions of the North. The funding includes £1 million to help keep Antony Gormley’s cast-iron statues on the foreshore at Crosby, £300,000 for Richard Wilson’s ‘Turning the Place Over’ at Liverpool and £153,000 for The Halo in East Lancashire.

MAJOR EVENTS FROM LATE 2007/2008...

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Eugenia Primavesi 1913-14

BIRTHDAY CITY CELEBRATES

Marketing expert Sue Nelson is the new Chief Executive of North West Fine Foods, the body set up by the NWDA to champion the region’s specialist food producers. Career posts have included Director of Marketing and Business Development of the University of Wales in Wrexham.

Four higher education institutions – Lancaster University, Metropolitan University, the University of Central Lancashire and St. Martin’s College, Lancaster – have joined forces to launch a new initiative to offer help to the region’s tourism and leisure businesses.

Dhruva Mistry’s distinctive 2.8 metre high Sitting Bull sculpture, voted the most popular piece of art at the 1984 Liverpool Garden Festival, is being restored to its former glory and given a new home at Otterspool as part of Mersey Waterfront’s Pride in Our Promenades scheme.

Launch pad– guests were given a preview of the 08 programme at St. George’s Hall

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APRIL – JULY: Monet to Hopper – The Artist and The Railway exhibition at Walker Art Galley

Tall ships arrive July

Ralph Lieberman

JULY: Maritime festival and start of The Tall Ships Races 2008

OCTOBER: RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture and biggest exhibition for 20 years on designer and architect Le Corbusier in the Crypt of the Metropolitan Cathedral.

also joining in the 08 festivities with Cheshire celebrating the Year of the Garden, Lancashire focusing on its culinary heritage by hosting the Year of Food, Manchester’s Year of Sport and Cumbria championing its Year of Adventure.

Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy 1929-30.

National Gallery, London

MAY: The Liverpool Sound concert, beamed live across the world from the city’s waterfront

AUTUMN: Artist Richard Wilson begins his commission entitled ‘Turning the Place Over’, to reshape the former Yates’s Wine Lodge, set for demolition

Claude Monet The Gare Saint-Lazare

The whole region is

Happy Birthday Liverpool, 800 years old in 2007. As the countdown continues to its year as European Capital of Culture, the city has begun a programme of exciting taster events designed to whet the appetite for 2008.

In a timely coincidence, this year Liverpool is also celebrating the key birthdays of some of its famous sons, buildings and events.

The Cavern was 50 years old on January 16 and Sir Paul McCartney will celebrate his 65th birthday on June 18. It is hoped that he and Ringo Starr, the two surviving Beatles with whom The Cavern will forever be associated, will agree to appear in a Mersey Sound concert, to be held on a floating stage off Liverpool’s waterfront on May Bank Holiday as one of the high points of 2008’s, programme.

This year (2007), the first of the city’s waterfront Graces – the Port of Liverpool Building – will be 100 years old on July 15 and the QEII, whose arrival on the Mersey on September 21 marks the official opening of the city’s new £15 million cruise liner facility, is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

But 2007 is about much more than ‘many happy returns’. The Liverpool Culture Company, which has a budget of £95 million over four years (2005-09), is unveiling new pieces of art, music and dance which highlight the year’s three key themes of celebration, exploration and reflection.

COMMUNITY PARTIES Supported by a £2 million investment from the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) for national and international marketing, the 07 cultural programme will include the gala re-opening of St George’s Hall after a £23.5 million refurbishment, the launch of a new £10 million International Slavery Museum and Liverpool 800 Day, celebrated with community parties, a pageant procession and Europe’s largest firework display.

Jason Harborow, Chief Executive of the Culture Company, who has always said that Liverpool ‘is more than the Beatles’, adds: “The impressive calendar of events for 2007 manages to strike a balance of thought-provoking art mixed

with major populist celebrations.

“I am delighted that it also reflects the diversity and heritage of all our communities, which is a great testament to the continuing culture of tolerance that being a world port cultivated.”

HERITAGE CENTRE St George’s Hall is central to many of the celebrations. In November it was chosen as the venue for the launch of the 2008 Capital of Culture programme, an event attended by over 450 guests who dined on dishes of Scouse, Liverpool’s traditional version of stew.

Inside the city’s architectural masterpiece, artists Stuart Bastik and Maddie Nicholson created an artwork consisting of 60 eight-foot metrological balloons anchored by two tonnes of sugar, courtesy of Tate & Lyle.

On April 23, St George’s Hall will be officially reopened after a refurbishment that includes the creation of a new heritage visitor centre and a fully operational small concert room.

It will also display a new large-scale painting that re-interprets the Liverpool Coat of Arms, by internationally acclaimed artist twins Amrit and Rabindra Singh, official artists in residence during Manchester’s 2002 Commonwealth Games. Liverpool is their hometown.

The re-opening will also be marked by ‘Colourscape Church Bell Symphony’, masterminded by Catalan bell tower composer Llorenc Barber, which will involve ringing the bells of the city centre’s two cathedrals and its municipal clocks.

August 23, International Slavery Remembrance Day, will see the opening of a new museum, to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade and August 28 is Liverpool 800 day, which will mark Liverpool’s first Charter issued by King John in 1207.

Peter Mearns, Director of Marketing and Communications at the NWDA, says the

programme of events to mark Liverpool’s 800th anniversary offers an exciting precursor to 2008.

“By bringing together such a diverse and exciting programme, 2007 will set the precedent for the cultural legacy that 2008 will create.

The Capital of Culture celebrations have an important role in showcasing both Liverpool and England’s Northwest to the UK and overseas, and the programme for 2007 is just the beginning.”

Young audience – the programme caters for all age groups

The programme will include two major national prize-giving events: the 2007 Turner Prize, sponsored by the NWDA, being held at Tate Liverpool, the first time the prestigious event has been held outside London, and the RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture, to be held in October 2008.

International events in 2008 will include a visit by Sir Simon Rattle and his Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and exhibitions featuring Austrian artist Gustav Klimt and Swiss architect and designer Le Corbusier.

For further information: Liverpool Culture Company tel: 0151 233 2008 www.liverpool08.com

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QUALITY OF LIFE

MEETING THE CLIMATE The Northwest is taking the lead nationally in establishing a sustainable, low-carbon economy, a move that should help it gain a competitive advantage in an emerging marketplace that could be worth £30 billion to UK business over the next ten years.

Measures to speed up the transformation are outlined in a three-year climate change action plan for the region – ‘Rising to the Challenge’ - unveiled at a key conference at the City of Manchester Stadium attended by Professor Sir David King, the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser.

“This plan is based on the simple premise that investment and innovation now will lead to economic and environmental returns in the future,” Bryan Gray, Chairman of the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), told nearly 400 delegates at the launch event.

PRECIOUS COMMODITY The debate on how to combat the effects of climate change has taken on a new urgency with publication of the Stern report.

This suggests that by not acting now the world risks losing 5% of GDP every year – the combined effect of two World Wars and the Great Depression.

Sir David mapped out the serious challenges facing the region, the nation and the international community on climate change urging those attending the conference to “treat energy as a precious commodity.”

He praised the Northwest’s pioneering

“THIS IS OUR PLAN. THERE IS NO PLANET B SO WE HAVE NO PLAN B.” BRYAN GRAY CHAIRMAN NWDA

Wind of change – the Barrow offshore wind farm generates enough electricity to power 65,000 homes

stance in producing England’s first regional action plan, and insisted that “the first to the table is going to be the first to see all the benefits economically.”

Endorsed by four key organisations, the NWDA, the North West Regional Assembly, Government Office for the North West and the Environment Agency, the plan requires the region to work on two fronts, a reduction in greenhouse gases and adapting to unavoidable climate change.

Of the 27 measures outlined in the plan, 12 are deemed to be priority actions. They include the development of a low carbon fund for research and commercialisation of low carbon technologies and low carbon fuels, and introducing new grant conditions on public sector capital spend projects.

Other actions range from identifying and helping the largest public, private and domestic sector emitters of greenhouse gases to reduce their emissions to promoting best practice in personal and workplace travel to reduce reliance of private cars.

AMBITIOUS TARGETS The plan, one of the 46 ‘transformational’ priorities of the Regional Economic Strategy (RES), identifies a number of ambitious targets that the NWDA and its partners want to see achieved by 2010 in the drive towards establishing a low carbon economy.

Among the aims is an increase in the percentage of the population taking action on climate change from 58% to 75%, a doubling in the take-up of low carbon building project grants to 272, an increase in installed Combined Heat and Power (CHP) capacity to 1.5 GW and zero growth in the annual number of trips by private car.

Bryan Gray outlined the role of regional organisations in delivering the Action Plan and how the Northwest could realise the economic potential that climate change - “a make or break issue for the region” presents to UK companies.

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E CHANGE CHALLENGE It is estimated that adapting to climate change could yield business opportunities worth £30 billion for UK companies over the next decade whilst the global market in lower carbon technologies could be worth an estimated 500 billion dollars by 2050.

BEST PRACTICE The plan, said the NWDA Chairman, provides “a clear direction and commitment” on the contribution the Northwest needs to make in helping the government meet the national target of a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050.

He pledged support, for example, for the installation of micro generation projects and energy efficient technologies, and the use of financial mechanisms to reduce the upfront costs for commercial and household property owners.

The NWDA was preparing to put “real money” into helping people in the region tackle climate change but he warned that the Agency would not be subsidising them.

Other pivotal actions outlined in the plan include the promotion of best practice, the use of Business Link to advise businesses on resource efficiency, improving regional data to assist investment decisions and development of a clearly worded communications plan to raise awareness of climate change.

Bryan Gray ended his speech with a stark message. “This is our plan. There is no planet B so we have no plan B.” For further information: email: damian.burton@nwda.co.uk tel: 01925 400220 www.nwda.co.uk

SETTING A GOOD EXAMPLE...

Companies, house builders, energy suppliers and even football clubs across the region are embracing the low-carbon revolution with a range of exemplar projects.

The CIS has clad three sides of its 25storey office tower in central Manchester with 7,244 photovoltaic panels, the largest solar array in the UK. The panels generate 180,000 units of electricity every year, enough to make 10 million cups of tea.

Offshore wind farms are set to have a major impact on the region’s energy supply.

One is already operating four miles off the South Cumbrian coast generating power for 65,000 homes from 30 turbines.

Another at Burbo Bank at the mouth of the Mersey will be generating enough electricity for 80,000 homes on Merseyside after its completion later this year (2007). The two projects will save a total of over 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The City of Manchester Stadium, home to Manchester City FC and the venue for the Northwest Climate Change conference, is set to make history by becoming the first in the

world to be powered by renewable energy when its own wind turbine is installed.

Designed by Sir Norman Foster, the 120 metre high turbine will produce enough electricity for the stadium and a further 1,250 homes.

House builders are also boosting their green energy credentials. Barratt’s EcoSmart Show Village at Chorley, for example, boasts a range of renewable and low energy features including wind, solar, geothermal and micro CHP.

Energy pioneer – the CIS Tower has the largest solar array in the UK

Redhills Business Centre – surplus energy is sold to National Grid

MODEL CONSUMER Cumbria Rural Enterprise Agency is a model player when it comes to energy use. The newly opened £1.2 million extension to its Redhills business centre at Penrith boasts the latest in renewable technologies.

It uses an underground heat exchange system to heat the building. Photovoltaics generate the electricity to drive the pumps, solar panels heat the water in the cloakrooms and windcatchers provide passive ventilation.

The energy saving devices added £150,000 to the cost of the project but when the office is not in use the electricity produced is sold back to the National Grid.

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QUALITY OF LIFE

TOURISM AWARDS HONOUR ROLE MODELS Lucky mystery shoppers have been living it up at some of the Northwest's finest hotels, restaurants, country house attractions and luxury self-catering cottages – all in the name of promoting excellence in the region's tourism offer.

Though the identity of the fortunate shoppers must remain a mystery, the rigour they bring to the annual England’s Northwest Tourism Awards is vital to the respect that award winners command, explains Felicity Goodey, Chair of the Northwest Tourism Forum.

“Winning one of these awards really does mean you are an exemplar and a role model for others to follow,” she says. “They very publicly set a standard, and it’s also an opportunity for some people to become national exemplars. For individual businesses, there's no doubt winning is the best marketing they could get.”

Regal charm – Chester Grosvenor and Spa was named Large Hotel of the Year

Organised by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and hosted

by BBC North West Tonight presenters Gordon Burns and Dianne Oxberry, the 2006 awards ceremony was held at Manchester's glamorous, newly opened Hilton Hotel, the latest jewel to be added to the region’s visitor infrastructure.

SERIOUS LUXURY The quality of contenders left nobody in any doubt that the visitor experience of the Northwest is changing fast – and that’s important, because there are 28 million visitors who turn up each year, contributing £7 billion to the region’s economy.

Nowhere is the improvement more apparent than in Blackpool, where the resort’s hoteliers and visitor attractions are striving to fashion a new visitor identity.

Regeneration schemes are transforming

Gourmets delight – Kay Matthews collects an award for the Three Fishes

the town’s seafront, promenades and transport gateways generating an inflow of tourists that may never have considered visiting Blackpool before.

So it’s just as well there’s now a classy bed and breakfast for them to stay at where quality and warmth of welcome are never compromised. The three-bedroom Number One Blackpool is situated in a quiet residential part of Blackpool’s South Shore.

Thrilled to be named as ‘Bed and Breakfast of the Year’, owner Claire Smith upholds that it’s the personal touch that counts.

Having owned and run Blackpool’s only five-diamond hotel for 14 years, she and husband Mark realised that their more expensive and best-equipped rooms were always the first to be booked.

They realised there was clearly an appetite for serious luxury in Blackpool, and as the couple had achieved every accolade possible at that establishment, they decided two years ago it was time to look for a smaller bed and breakfast where they could give guests a completely new experience of staying in the town.

“I want people to feel completely pampered and relaxed when they come here. We get a lot of business people who are fed up of impersonal hotels as well as pre- and postchildren couples, and surprisingly perhaps, some very young people who live at home and have high disposable incomes,” she says.

“We want to offer exceptional value, and make it a principle not to have any hidden costs.

I’m totally delighted to get the award because it’s not just good for us, it's good for Blackpool.”

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“WINNING ONE OF THESE AWARDS REALLY DOES MEAN THAT YOU ARE AN EXEMPLAR AND A ROLE MODEL FOR OTHERS TO FOLLOW.” FELICITY GOODEY CHAIR NORTHWEST TOURISM FORUM

Imperial War Museum North – Large Attraction of the Year

New experience – Number One Blackpool is a stylish upmarket B&B

A good dinner, of course, is just as important as a comfy place to lay your head for the night, and the ‘Taste of England’s Northwest’ award was won this year by Craig Bancroft and Nigel Haworth of The Three Fishes in Mitton, Lancashire.

REGIONAL DISHES Both have been in the hospitality business for over two decades and already own the acclaimed restaurant with rooms, Northcote Manor in Lancashire. With the experience gained in running this gourmet’s delight, they decided to find a pub where they could deliver regional dishes and British classics that would champion local food.

“Winning this gives us serious credibility, and as a business it also gives us an appetite for expansion,” says Craig Bancroft.

Determined that the business would give as much value as possible to the surrounding community, he and chef Nigel Haworth have made it an article of faith to source all food from suppliers within a 40-mile radius.

“This country has some of the best game in Europe, we’re great producers of vegetables, our orchards are superb and we’re surrounded by water so we can get great seafood,” Bancroft enthuses. “We’re championing the regionality of the produce, and if you get this type of establishment

right, it becomes the hub of the community because people’s businesses have a real stake in its success.”

None of the winners are resting on their laurels, and it’s this determination to improve that Felicity Goodey is keen to promote.

“Across the region as a whole we still have lots more to do,” she says. “It’s about convincing local authorities that it’s worth investing in stylish public realm.

“We need to train people: we are far too reliant on the influx of young people from Poland and eastern Europe, but we can’t rely on that because at some point they’ll want to go home and start their own businesses.

As an industry, we have to get better at measuring our impact – without that it’s virtually impossible to get the Treasury to put serious money into it.

“Our transport infrastructure has to improve. We have to develop serious careers in the visitor economy that have bright, exciting and well-paid prospects. But the great thing is, you know, I think we’re on the cusp of it!”

For further information: email: nick.brooks-sykes@nwda.co.uk tel: 01925 400100 www.visitenglandsnorthwest.com

ENGLAND'S NORTHWEST TOURISM AWARDS 2006 Large Hotel of the Year The Chester Grosvenor Hotel and Spa Small Hotel of the Year Stanley House Hotel, Mellor, Lancashire Bed and Breakfast of the Year Number One, Blackpool Self-Catering Holiday of the Year Bridge End Farm Cottages, Boot, Cumbria Holiday Park of the Year Skelwith Fold Caravan Park, Ambleside, Cumbria Large Attraction of the Year Imperial War Museum North, Greater Manchester Small Attraction of the Year Arley Hall and Gardens, Cheshire Tourism Website of the Year www.english-in-chester.co.uk Excellence in Business Tourism Low Wood Hotel, Windermere, Cumbria Taste of England's Northwest The Three Fishes, Mitton, Lancashire Excellence in Customer Service Averil Dawson and Ann Cook, The Beacon, Whitehaven, Cumbria Tourist Information Centre of the Year Congleton TIC, Cheshire

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NOTEBOOK

PEOPLE IN THE REGION

HIGH FLIER FOR OMEGA PROJECT OMEGA, the £5 million government initiative to help the aviation industry meet the environmental challenge, has appointed senior civil servant Roger Gardner as its Chief Executive. He will be based at the Centre for Air Transport and the Environment (CATE) at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Mr. Gardner joins CATE from the Department of Transport where he was Head of Air Quality and Environmental Technology with responsibility for UK and international policy advice on noise, emissions and air quality.

The OMEGA project will link the universities, government, industry and pressure groups in a common goal to foster knowledge transfer from research centres to industry to ensure aviation can grow in an environmentally sustainable way.

GREENWOOD TO DRIVE CUMBRIA GROWTH Cumbria Vision, the organisation set up to provide strategic leadership for the county’s economic development, has appointed Richard Greenwood, former Area Director of the Learning and Skills Council in Gloucestershire, as its Chief Executive.

Richard has commercial background having spent eight years with national retailers, four years as a marketing director and then as managing director of three companies in the manufacturing, distribution and steel stockholding industries.

In his new role he will work with the Chairman and Board of Cumbria Vision and key partners to implement the emerging Cumbria Economic Regeneration Action Plan. This focuses on growth priorities such as business enterprise, nuclear activity, advanced manufacturing and education.

TOP AWARD FOR ALAN GILBERT Professor Alan Gilbert’s work in transforming the University of Manchester into the largest higher education institution in the UK earned him the title of ‘Business Leader of the Year’ at the CBI’s 2006 Northwest Business Awards at the Midland Hotel, Manchester. The awards were sponsored by the NWDA. Since the President and Vice-Chancellor came to the city from Australia in 2004, the university has been named the Sunday Times ‘University of the Year’ in 2006.

With 24 academic schools and 35,000 students it now has a £590 million annual income, making it Britain’s first half billion pound university.

Warburtons Ltd, of Bolton, the country’s largest family owned bakery, which has established itself as one of the UK’s top ten consumer brands, was the ‘Board of the Year’. Renovo, the recently listed Manchester-based biotech company developing wound-healing products, took the ‘Best Emerging Company’ award.

BOXING CLEVER Anne Farrow, a 21-year-old Product Design student at the University of Salford, has been crowned the UK’s Most Enterprising Student.

After winning the regional award in the prestigious Shell Step programme, a unique placement scheme to prepare students for the world of work, she went on to claim the national title.

She spent eight weeks working at United Aluminium (Unibox) in the summer researching and designing display stands, opening up new areas of business for the company. Her stay there produced £49,000 in extra sales and an offer of a job.

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MORE FAME FOR BETH TWEDDLE World champion gymnast Beth Tweddle kept up her winning streak by snatching the BBC North West Sports Personality 2006 award. The 21-yr-old, from Bunbury in Cheshire, is studying at Liverpool John Moores University to be a physiotherapist.

Beth who trains at the City of Liverpool She received her latest award at the BBC Club in Toxteth also swept to victory in the North West Sports Awards at Manchester’s bars in the 2006 European Championship, Hilton Hotel. Now in its eighth year, the event the first British senior gymnast to win was organised with the support of the NWDA gold at the event. She is also a six times and has become one of the highlights of the national champion. sporting calendar.

RENOWNED SCIENTIST HEADS FOR DARESBURY World-renowned physicist Professor Swapan Chattopadhyay has been named as the Inaugural Director of The Cockcroft Institute, a new accelerator facility that is expected to open up new horizons and opportunities for science.

He has also been appointed to the first Chair of Accelerator Physics in the UK, a new academic post created jointly by the Universities of Liverpool, Lancaster and Manchester.

Professor Chattopadhyay is currently Associate Director at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in the US and has a distinguished reputation for his work in the physics and technology of particle beams and photon science. He will take up his new post in March.

The Cockcroft Institute is located on the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus in Cheshire and has been established with an initial investment of £27 million, including £10 million from the NWDA.

Its aim is to provide the intellectual focus, the educational infrastructure and the essential scientific and technological facilities to enable UK scientists and engineers in research centres and industry to take major roles in global accelerator design, construction and operation.

Liverpool City Council has appointed John Kelly as its new Executive Director for Regeneration. He played a key role in preparing the winning Capital of Culture bid and has played a major part in drawing public and private investment into the city.

Aged 47 and married with one daughter, he is a graduate of Manchester University and before joining the city council in 2001 as Assistant Director for Regeneration Policy and Programmes, he worked for the Department of the Environment and Transport and the NWDA. His portfolio will include overseeing one of the largest regeneration capital programmes in Europe.

SHOWING THE WAY...

Rachael Wignall, a 22-year old employee at Wigan-based electronics manufacturer C-TEC, has become a gender role model by being named as the ‘Young Manufacturer of the Year’ in The Manufacturing Institute’s 2006 Business Awards.

She joined the company as an apprentice in 2001 and has gone on to become a key

STEP UP FOR JOHN KELLY

contributor to C-TEC’s development and growth. She was involved in the original design of a flagship product that is now worth £500,000 to the company.

Other main award winners were PZ Cussons (UK) Ltd (Business of the Year) and Knowsley-based ColorMatrix Europe Ltd (Small Business of the Year).

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EVENTS

EVENT HIGHLIGHTS For further information www.nwda.co.uk/events 15

GREATER MANCHESTER CHAMBER MAR ANNUAL DINNER Speaker: Carphone Warehouse founder Charles Dunstone Manchester Central (formerly MICC)

APRIL 12-14 APRIL Food heroes – regional accolades

FEBRUARY

APRIL

28

FEB

2012 BENEFITS CONFERENCE

How the Northwest can benefit from London Olympics Manchester Utd FC

APRIL

MARCH 1

NORTHWEST SCIENCE STRATEGY LAUNCH

ST. GEORGE’S HALL GALA RE-OPENING

Celebrations for a newly resplendent architectural icon St. George’s Hall, Liverpool

MERSEYSIDE PROPERTY MAR GALA DINNER

26

Celebration of Merseyside’s achievements in the property sector St. George’s Hall, Liverpool

Showcase of best visitor attractions Hilton Hotel, Deansgate, Manchester

7

APRIL

TRANSFORMING LIFE, MAR WORK & ORGANISATIONS

MAY

Full-day national management conference with Tom Peters and Charles Handy Hilton Hotel, Manchester

2

14

UKTI INTERNATIONAL MAR BUSINESS DAY Exploiting the benefits of doing business in high growth markets. Speaker: Sir Digby Jones Manchester Utd FC

18

NORTHWEST REGIONAL MAY CONSTRUCTION AWARDS A celebration of the high calibre construction projects currently underway in the region The Hilton, Manchester

JUNE 5

JUNE

New ideas on how to enhance the region’s science base.

Speaker: Edward de Bono AstraZeneca, Alderley Park, Cheshire

23

VISA PARALYMPIC WORLD CUP The global event for elite athletes with a disability Various venues, Manchester

MAY

GRAND NATIONAL

Annual meeting culminating in famous Steeplechase Aintree, Liverpool

17

7-13

MANCHESTER SQUARE, LONDON

Profiling the region’s cultural offer to the London cognoscenti Manchester Square, SW1

28

NORTHWEST FOOD AWARDS JUNE Recognising excellence from the regions food and drink industry Midland Hotel, Manchester

28JUNE15JULY

MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL World’s first festival of new and original work Various venues, Manchester

MANCHESTER TOURISM AWARDS

CUMBRIA FOR MAY EXCELLENCE AWARDS Showcasing Cumbria’s best tourism businesses Castle Green Hotel, Kendal

St George’s Hall – architectural icon

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GETTING IN TOUCH At the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), we value your views and feedback.

Visit www.nwda.co.uk & www.visitenglandsnorthwest.com

The NWDA’s Executive Team are based at its Headquarters in Warrington.

STEVEN BROOMHEAD Chief Executive Tel: 01925 400 133 Email: Steven.Broomhead@nwda.co.uk

JAMES BERRESFORD Director of Tourism Tel: 01925 400 472 Email: James.Berresford@nwda.co.uk

BERNICE LAW Chief Operating Officer, Deputy Chief Executive Tel: 01925 400 548 Email: Bernice.Law@nwda.co.uk

PETER MEARNS Director of Marketing and Communications Tel: 01925 400 212 Email: Peter.Mearns@nwda.co.uk

IAN HAYTHORNTHWAITE Executive Director, Finance and Corporate Resources Tel: 01925 400 116 Email: Ian.Haythornthwaite@nwda.co.uk

FIONA MILLS Director of HR, Organisational Change & Development Tel: 01925 644 422 Email: Fiona.Mills@nwda.co.uk

MARK HUGHES Executive Director, Enterprise, Innovation and Skills Tel: 01925 400 531 Email: Mark.Hughes@nwda.co.uk

PATRICK WHITE Director of Policy Tel: 01925 400 274 Email: Patrick.White@nwda.co.uk

PETER WHITE Executive Director, Infrastructure and Development Tel: 01925 400 299 Email: Peter.White@nwda.co.uk

HEAD OFFICE The NWDA manages all operations from its Headquarters at:

HEAD OFFICE PO Box 37, Renaissance House, Centre Park, Warrington WA1 1XB Tel: +44 (0)1925 400 100 Fax: +44 (0)1925 400 400 e-mail: information@nwda.co.uk

PRINT STOCK: Cover: Challenger Laser Matt is totally chlorine free and acquired only from suppliers operating sustainable forest reserves.

Text: Cyclus offset is manufactured using only 100% recycled post consumer waste.

Designed and produced by Kaleidoscope ADM, Liverpool. www.kadm.co.uk NWDA KADM 02/07 20212

KEY CONTACTS

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