‘Undersold’ Staffordshire seeking spotlight with growth vision
Staffordshire County Council says the county’s untapped potential could be worth billions to the economy, ahead of a landmark summit of UK investors and developers next week.
Leaders at the Reform-led authority, who say the county has “lost its heartbeat” after decades of being sold short by central government, are hoping to jolt the region’s economy back to life with a “development-ready” offer – set to be put to investors at UKREiiF in Leeds.
Some of those potential growth spots set to be highlighted include the Harworth-backed Ceramic Valley development on the A500 near Stoke-on-Trent, and further expansion along the A500/A50 growth corridor which links the county at either end with Derbyshire and Cheshire – a scheme which leader Cllr Martin Murray says could be a nationally important asset with further government backing.
“This could add billions to the UK’s GDP in a matter of a couple of years,” he said.
“Staffordshire is known as the heart of the country, but it’s lost its beat. We want to talk about the growth corridors that we have across the whole county.
“We’ve got huge investments such as the West Midlands Interchange – Europe’s largest rail hub – being built in Staffordshire. How many people know it? Nobody knows it. That is the key message at UKREiiF, we’ll be coming with that passion to connect all of this up as one message.”
The Staffordshire delegation, which will also include large industrial developers such as Stoford, Indurent and Harworth, will also be talking up town centre regeneration projects currently reshaping towns across the county, with large schemes already underway in Stafford, Burton, Stoke and Tamworth.
But an eye-catching partnership approach currently powering the regeneration of Newcastle-under-Lyme has also caught the imagination.
There, the borough council has teamed up with private developer CapitalCentric on a £90m scheme of three linked projects, which is set to reshape the town centre – bringing a former shopping centre and a 1960’s-era multi-storey car park into residential use.
“Newcastle has done a great job – from investments to delivery was just under two years. We must follow that lead through everywhere,” added Cllr Murray.
“If someone’s there ready to invest, with a good idea, we must allow that red tape to move quickly and to be cut away and not used where it’s not needed.
“The days of governments controlling and owning everything are a model that’s been gone for a long time.
“Joint ventures, joint projects where it’s right, are absolutely the forward model.”
Meanwhile, the county will also use the platform to highlight availability for businesses that want to move through the gears more quickly.
The authority believes that speed could become one of Staffordshire’s biggest advantages in the race for investment, particularly as sectors such as defence, advanced manufacturing and logistics look for locations where expansion can happen immediately, rather than years down the line.
“What we’re seeing in Staffordshire is we’ve got the units ready to go. So when we’re seeing defence and manufacturing growth, not only do we have the heritage in having the likes of JCB here, we have the units ready too,” added Staffordshire Investment Agency manager, Charlotte Cain.
“In some other destinations, certainly in the south of England, you’re waiting for land to become available, and then you’ve got to build from scratch, and some of these people have got contracts ready to go now.
“Hopefully, what people will be hearing is that we’ve got the stock and we’re ready to go. Don’t worry about spades in the ground in 18 months’ time, we’ve got the sites and the ambition ready for you.”
