Guest blog - East Midlands: Your time has come

The East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) was formally launched in March this year and was, in short order, followed by the election of Claire Ward as the first ever regional mayor of the East Midlands in May’s local election round.

Both events were the culmination of a long campaign of lobbying by believers in the direct democratic and economic benefits of regional devolution which, as a policy, the new Government looks set to extend.

Yet the existence of a Combined Authority and a Regional Mayor are not ends in themselves. Indeed, as vehicles at this democratic level, working together, they are set to be both regional talismen and enablers at the beginning of what so many commercial and public stakeholders in the East Midlands have been working towards for a number of years.

And that is the catalyst to turbo-charge development across the East Midlands in order for the region to fulfil its growth potential to generate a level of economic prosperity that benefits the whole of the UK, as well as the region’s own residents, businesses and inward investors.

Bold claims, indeed. There will be those - albeit a minority - who might consider ‘devolution’ and ‘growth agenda’ merely as buzz words of the post-General Election honeymoon season.

But some of us - through Em DevCo, as a local authority owned vehicle, and other business & commercial stakeholders and local council representatives and organisations - have long been on the ground working on, and towards, projects and opportunities in the absence of just the kind of ‘oomph’ that a Regional Mayor and a Combined Authority can now give.

That ‘oomph’ being access to the corridors of power, support and funding at Whitehall departmental level that these new regional levels of office in the East Midlands have and could, collectively, we would argue, be best delivered through a formal Development Corporation.

Scalable landmark investment opportunities

Central government has, in the past, highlighted EM DevCo’s pioneering approach as a model for accelerating development, realising large-scale potential, and achieving locally-led high quality growth.

As such, we have been working in conjunction with other interested parties on a number of scalable landmark investment opportunities in the East Midlands that could be of national significance and create tens of thousands of new jobs and, by 2045, point to £4.8 billion of GVA.

For instance, the potential for the regeneration of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station site, close to the M1, East Midlands Parkway Station and the expanding East Midlands airport.

The power station, owned by Uniper, will stop generating electricity by the end of this September and the owner has been working with regional stakeholders to develop a vision for this site that could see it become an energy hub for innovation and business.

Planning anticipates low-carbon energy production, storage and distribution, the hosting of manufacturing businesses and opportunities for gigafactories for battery and electric vehicle manufacturing.

The formation of a Regional Development Corporation provides the opportunity for increased ambition, in the site’s regeneration, sitting within the bigger, more strategic national infrastructure picture, decarbonisation framework and NetZero targets.

The East Midlands Freeport - centred around East Midlands Airport - as the UK’s only inland freeport - is already beyond just a concept and is a proper work in progress for some serious international commercial operators.

The airport is the UK’s most important for dedicated cargo flights. It handles 1,000 tonnes a day and facilitates approximately £40 billion of trade to and from the UK and £11 billion of non-EU imports and exports each year.

It has already witnessed significant growth with DHL Express and UPS investing, between them, over £200 million in recent years.

The airport provides a stimulus for wider regional growth. To the north of the airfield, SEGRO is currently developing the East Midlands Gateway site which will see Amazon, Shop Direct, Nestlé and Kuehne Nagel take space for their logistics operations.

Although very much conceived and championed by previous government administrations, freeports, by all indications to date, remain firmly on the new government’s economic growth agenda.

These are just two examples of scalable investment opportunities that have already been pushed forward by private, commercial and public stakeholder interests, albeit the latter only at a local or pan-local public level at best.

The time is right

And there’s the rub: commercial and local authority interests can only input at a certain pace and to a certain level. Each has other distractions and competing priorities - particularly if enough time passes without resulting in actual outputs.

So much work has been done and so much is in place already. Stakeholders are willing and business cases have been made to present many deliverable opportunities in the East Midlands.

The time is right for the interim vehicle of Em DevCo to wind down now and give way to the devolution levers of a Regional Mayor and Combined Authority that are now in place.

We have every confidence that they are the best placed to make the democratic and economic case to Whitehall for the kind of turbo-charge a dedicated Regional Development Corporation and its attendant powers can deliver for the East Midlands and the UK.

Sir Christopher Haworth joined EM DevCo as Chair of the Board in January 2022, using experience gained from a 40-year career in commercial property consultancy to accelerate the company’s activity ahead of formal funding and powers being granted by Government.

Prior to joining EM DevCo, he was head of commercial at a national property consultancy and he has a range of experience as a Non-Executive Chairman and Director on a number of corporate boards.

Sir Christoper’s career includes large-scale property joint ventures, and advising on development and planning potential for landowners and local authorities.