Region looks to strong leadership to help economic recovery

THE Leeds City Region has huge potential but needs strong leadership to deliver it, an audience of business leaders were told at a keynote event held by Barclays Corporate.

The Future of Leeds City Region event heard from futurologist Dr James Bellini and a panel made up of entrepreneur and Yorkshire International Business Convention founder Mike Firth, regional director of the CBI Andrew Palmer and David Parkin of TheBusinessDesk.com.

While Mr Firth said Leeds lacked leadership, both Mr Palmer and Mr Parkin said they were confident that new Leeds City Council chief executive Tom Riordan would provide the leadership that the city craved.

Mr Palmer said: “We have a new chief executive of the council and the city region submitted the bid for the largest Local Economic Partnership (LEP).”

Mr Parkin said: “I agree with Andrew, there is a good chief executive in Tom Riordan. I just think you need clear leadership, whatever colour of party. You need clear strong leadership.

Tom Riordan is no fool, he left Yorkshire Forward to go to the council, he knows it is a big job but he realises the potential that Leeds has got and he’s going to deliver it and he needs to engage with all the companies in the city region if they are going to help him deliver that.

“Sometimes we have chased the big prizes, the big names, and forgotten about the indigenous businesses,” he added.

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The audience also heard from Lee Collinson, head of Yorkshire for Barclays Corporate, who said: “Barclays has continued to invest in the region when other lenders have left. The Leeds City Region is the powerhouse of the region and it is vital to continue to invest.”

Dr Bellini told the audience that “small is competitive” in city region terms but Yorkshire, with GVA of £90bn, is in the top 20% of the world’s economies, a similar size to Denmark and Norway.

He said that the world is changing quickly. “Seven of the top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004. The UK internet sector is worth £100bn with annual growth of 10% and in 2015 will make up 10% of UK GDP. That is your opportunity.”

The panel agreed that the early months of the coalition government had provided difficult challenges but it had made progress.

Mr Firth said: “As far as any government is concerned, small government is better than big government. Gordon Brown, irrespective of whether you are left or right, was a control freak and wanted to control everything.

“You get business to flourish when you take away the red tape and bureaucracy and let business get on with it.”

Mr Parkin said: As far as the coalition is concerned, they seem to be doing a pretty good job. They’ve not shocked people, yes, they are making cuts but the Budget surprised people – it wasn’t as bad as we thought. The Comprehensive Spending Review wasn’t as bad as people thought. Maybe that will give us the stability to kick on into next year.

“We need to get into next year and businesses need to get cracking. This year as been a year of false starts.”

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The panel agreed that bank lending is still not what it could be but said that there is a danger focusing too much criticism on the banking sector.

“When I started in business the guy who I got the most advice from was my local bank manager. Banks have moved completely away from that. The major thing banks have got to do now is get back in touch with their customers,” said Mr Firth.

David Parkin added: “The banks are the organisations who are going to help us out of it [the recession]. Yes, I think they could lend more. Mike’s right, they need to get back to what they are good at. There is a clear difference between the retail banks and the investment banks. It is very dangerous to lump them all into the same pot.”

The panellists said that while the green agenda can be a key part of Yorkshire’s economy in the future, companies need to see the bottom line benefits of embracing green issues.

Mr Palmer said: “As I go round this region talking to people, they are interested in doing their bit for the green agenda and they are also looking at ways they can look to growth for their own companies and the growth of the region.

“In this region we do some really good stuff – we don’t highlight enough of it,” he added.

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