Mind the gap, says Department for Transport

FOR the Northern Powerhouse to bridge the productivity gap a joined up approach between cities and regions within the north is crucial, according to Martin Capstick, director of northern transport strategy for the Department for Transport.

He was speaking at the Transport & the Northern Powerhouse Summit, hosted by law firm DWF in association with The Business Services Association.

More than 60 people from across public and private sectors gathered to hear speakers including Kishor Tailor, the chief executive of Humber LEP, along with Chris Murray, the director of the Core Cities Group and representatives from Transport for Greater Manchester, Laing O’Rourke and Alliance Manchester Business School.

“If you just devolve cities you end up with strong cities but not necessarily a strong region. So it is important that the region acts in a more joined up way to benefit the economy,” said Mr Capstick, who was appointed to the newly created Department for Transport role in July this year.

On his role Mr Capstick told TheBusinessDesk.com: “Following the election, ministers wanted to take forward very quickly work on developing the Northern Powerhouse. We thought it was right within the department to create a new role both to champion that, to be more outward facing with our partners in the north and also within the department to make sure we were responding at the appropriate speed to that agenda.”

He said the government has a “bottom up approach” to boosting the North of England economy by £44bn so that GVA matches that in the rest of the country.

“It does not have a blue print to roll out – city deals have been bottom up. The government’s view is to be pragmatic and responsive. Some might say it is often slow and reflective but actually that hasn’t been my experience here.”

He pointed to devolution deals that have been brokered very quickly after the election.

“The government is impatient to make progress,” he said.

Andrew Herring, partner at DWF, said transport and infrastructure plans that are in development or already underway prove that with the Northern Powerhouse, “there is no going back now: it is happening.”

He added: “Devolution used to come up at elections and go down again afterwards but it doesn’t feel like that anymore.”

A downloadable supplement on Transport and the Northern Powerhouse will be published on TheBusinessDesk.com in January.