The Future of Coventry: City centre development must happen

COVENTRY city council chief executive Martin Reeves told the audience at TheBusinessDesk.com’s Future of Coventry breakfast debate that city centre regeneration must take place for the city to thrive.

Speaking to an 80-strong audience at the event – sponsored by Prupim and PwC – Reeves said: “To make Coventry a genuinely competitive UK and global city in the current or future marketplace you need a city centre that significantly punches above its weight.

“We need to create a city centre that is not exclusively built on retail but also on living, leisure and families enjoying the urban space.That would put us on the same footing as many of the cities that have lifted their city centres.

“This is an essential part of our plan. It is holding us back.”

Reeves (below right) told the audience at Prupim’s Stonecourt building at the city’s MiddleMarch Office Park that it is a ten to 20 year vision.

“But it is non-negotiable if the city is to become a place where business can be done and for us to continue to grow,” he said.

“We need to be realistic about what we can and can’t do in the current climate but we need to show some confident steps forward.”

Elsewhere at the event the Coventry &Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) was praised for making a positive start.

Richard Hutchins (far left), director of Jaguar Land Rover programmes at WMG (Warwick Manufacturing Group), said: “What has happened in Coventry and Warwickshire has demonstrated a huge degree of partnership in very difficult circumstances.

“We are starting to see results. For example Coventry and Warwickshire led the charge to support the development of the Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Fund.

“That wouldn’t have happened without both a good deal of business input and a great deal of support from the public sector.”

Michael Kitts (below left), a partner at the accountancy and advisory firm PwC who leads its public sector team in the Midlands, also felt positive about the LEP.

“We as a firm see LEPs across the entire country and I think the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP is probably at the forefront of thinking in terms of the partnership between public and private sectors. There needs to be that shared vision,” he said.

Dave Wright (below right), Coventry University’s director of strategic development, said the next 12 to 18 months is going to critical for the LEP from a delivery perspective and believes working with other LEPs is key.

“We’ve already to see the ability for LEPs to collaborate with each other across their boundaries. I think there is perhaps an opportunity to do that better,” he said.

“We need a group of like-minded and committed LEPs.”

Asked about the importance of high-end manufacturing initiatives to Coventry’s economic future, Reeves said: “This is one of our key differentiating characteristics and inward investors are buying into it. We absolutely have to make this work.”

Hutchins agreed. “Fundamentally high-end means manufacturing businesses are there because they have taken quite a lot of risk. Sometimes they need a leg up to do those kind of things and that’s where the public sector can play a part,” he said.

“Of all the places I have worked, Coventry and Warwickshire has the best set of assets when it comes to advanced manufacturing and we need to get right behind it.

“It really creates wealth for the local economy. And those jobs will create further jobs in the supply chain. This is one area where we are world class.”

Wright said support programmes have to be aimed at the right things to lever to the maximum the jobs that are going to be created.

“A lot of funding has been aimed at SMEs and that is appropriate. But we also need to support the companies further up the supply chain as that’s where the leverage comes from,” he said.

Kitts said he thought targeting key sectors such as advanced manufacturing and the low carbon agenda is the right approach for the city to take.

“To be successful you need to be focused and distinctive. Coventry and Warwickshire needs to decide what that is distinctive about it, focus on that and then get everyone to rally around it,” he said.

“You need very simple messages to support that distinctiveness and to say what you are about as a place. That becomes a very powerful message.”