Foreign investors target Manchester
MANCHESTER is the most attractive Northern city for foreign business investment, according to a report by Grant Thornton.
The study by the business and financial adviser’s Place Analytics team identifies the key places outside London which offer high quality locations for inward investment, and also highlights some of the areas offering investors the best value for money in terms of quality and cost.
While London remains a key location for investors, the analysis identifies a number of attractive locations outside London offering high quality yet more cost effective options. These include the cities of Birmingham, Leeds, and Bristol, as measured by economic, social and environmental criteria.
Of the Northern cities Manchester comes out on top with only affluent South East local authority areas and, owing to its nuclear energy sector, Copeland in the Lake District ranking above Manchester in 23rd place overall.
The report, based on Grant Thornton’s Business Location Index, provides a ranking of 324 local authorities in England on key economic, social and environmental criteria that influence business decisions.
The analysis reveals that 7% of English local authorities offer relatively high quality business locations at relatively low costs.
The aim of the research is to give local authorities and local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) the tools to better understand and market their strengths and assets to inward investment.
Grant Thornton UK partner Phillip Woolley said: “Inward investment is a major component of delivering growth helping to drive GDP, foster innovation, enhance productivity, support and create jobs and ultimately, develop a more vibrant UK economy.
“However, the success rate in attracting inward investment varies significantly across the country and the unequal distribution of foreign ownership is stark. The Business Location Index has been created to help local authorities, LEPs and central government understand more about and ultimately redress this imbalance.
“Manchester is one of the natural locations for inward investment in the UK and its leading role in delivering the Northern Powerhouse agenda is only going to strengthen its role. Our report adds to the wealth of data which supports the city’s legitimate claim to be the business capital of the north.
“There are both national and local implications emerging from this analysis. At the national level these include the need to recognise the importance of the city region and wider travel to work patterns.
“Using new infrastructure developments, such as HS2, to help shift London’s sphere of influence in relation to inward investment is also important.
Helping to identify and support the development of specific ecosystems and sector strengths and using a range of fiscal levels alongside targeted investment to support the development of these is also an advantage.”
“Giving true devolution to all local public services would allow local authorities to develop place based, outcome focused services with no Whitehall strings and enable them to design and deliver services based on people’s needs rather than nationally determined organisational funding silos.”
