For the second year, Insider welcomed 100 selected guests to Cannes’ famous Hotel Martinez for a lunchtime panel debate on the progress being made by the UK’s regional cities.
The issue of city growth and competitiveness is one that Insider, as a national regional publisher with seven offices in six UK regions, has a particular interest in. Since October 2007 North West Business Insider has been taking a look each month at the competition – those cities throughout Europe and beyond that cities like Manchester claim to be in competition with.
We thought that MIPIM would provide the ideal forum to add some substance to the arguments put forward by some of the UK’s leading cities, put the cities under the microscope and ask our panellists how they view the strengths and weaknesses of those cities, and what the future might have in store.
David Partridge, as a developer with experience across three of the UK’s largest cities, is better placed than most to comment. He said: “Throughout the 1990s you’d have to say that Birmingham was ahead, but Manchester has very quickly progressed and overtaken it. It has a unique proposition and it markets itself fantastically.
“It’s probably helped by being a bit further from London, which gives it a bit more distinction but also works in practical areas – its airport has been more successful. But I know Mike Whitby, the leader of Birmingham City Council, is keen to get the city back on track.”
Jan Fletcher, speaking both as a developer and as chairman of Marketing Leeds, said: “Leeds is also probably a bit behind Manchester in terms of marketing. But it too has a unique proposition, it’s the fastest-growing city and the major financial and business services city for the north, while offering lower rents than Manchester or Birmingham.”
Is Manchester’s triumph merely that it tells its story better than others? Rachel Combie said not. “Leadership and collaboration have been at the heart of Manchester’s progress. And a lot of MIDAS’s work in the last couple of years has been developing the city region brand, so that we can sell a much bigger range of sites to a wider range of occupiers.”
Professor Michael Parkinson said: “Cities really matter and that’s been recognised and backed by government. The last ten years have been a good news story for the cities, they are where the action is.
“The economic conditions of the last decade have been very benign for city growth, so if a city has failed to cash in during that time it’s probably in trouble.”
However, there’s still work to be done, warned Parkinson. The cities across Europe that are scoring highly on the major factors that investors look for – availability of skilled labour, high quality national and international transport links, support for business – continue to be the regional German cities, notably Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart, while Helsinki, Barcelona and Madrid were all picked out.
“There are different models for growth,” Parkinson said. “But there are things they have in common – economic diversity, connectivity – both physical and virtual – innovation and a lifestyle brand.” In Parkinson’s view, the three UK cities that have outperformed the average in recent years are Bristol, Leeds and Manchester, while Birmingham “needs a second act”.
If the regional city is king, where does that leave the next tier locations? That was the question posed by Marketing Derby’s John Forkin. Fletcher spoke on Leeds’ efforts to bring in the 11 local authorities that make up the Leeds city region to build a stronger voice and to improve relations, while Parkinson had this advice to offer:
“Back winners and share the wealth. It took the IRA bomb in 1996 for Manchester to realise how interlinked all its constituent parts were, because it suddenly meant no one from Wigan could get in to work. City development is not a zero sum game where if one place wins, another necessarily has to lose.”
Civic leadership is always a big issue, and with rumours flying around MIPIM that there may be changes at the top in some big cities, this event was no exception. Sir Bob Kerslake has already left Sheffield City Council to take over the new Housing and Communities Agency of course, but what would be the impact of the equally popular Sir Howard Bernstein leaving Manchester?
Partridge said: “Sir Howard has been, and is, a great figurehead for Manchester, but people should never underestimate Sir Richard Leese, and other figures in the city leadership.
“Manchester’s success really is a team effort and the political stability provided by the council has allowed the city to develop at pace.”
More than one observer has called Bernstein a champion salesman, the nearest thing a regional city has to Ken Livingstone, who, as event chair, Insider’s editorial director Michael Taylor said, has been an enormously effective leader for London on the world stage – love him or loathe him. So is there a case for city mayors?
Partridge said: “I don’t think the model fits. London is so diverse that it needed someone to take over and have overall power. It’s basically a series of little cities, but the regional cities are manageable.” Parkinson, who views the mayor question as yesterday’s story, said: “Personality can be over-played. Everyone says ‘we’d love to have Leese and Bernstein,’ but only one city has them and plenty of cities are doing OK.
“What cities need is to look at models that maximise participation and give better decision-making.”
The panel agreed that as a whole, the cities and universities outside the south east have not done enough as yet to maximise their retention of graduates.
Although most major centres loudly proclaim to have over 10 per cent of their populations in university education, the facts are that too many graduates still flock to the south east as the place that can provide more and better opportunities.
Partridge said: “The quality of life in London is desperate, but people know there is opportunity there to express themselves and play on the global stage. What we’ve done over the last ten years is start to persuade people that they can do that in other cities, but it is a long process.”
What is Manchester doing to retain students? Combie said: “It’s something we work on a lot, both on the creative side and in terms of people’s aspirations – what sort of accommodation do recent graduates want when they move on from student digs?”
As the regional cities strengthen the brands they are starting to build, one of the factors that could help graduate retention is civic pride. Partridge identified this as the biggest single advantage that the UK cities enjoy over their rivals.
Fletcher agreed, saying that recent studies showed 98 per cent of Leeds residents are satisfied with life, while Combie spoke about work Manchester is doing with Lyon, the French city that has mirrored Manchester’s rise up the European standings. Lyon’s marketing is carried out under the banner Only Lyon.
As to what the future has in store, Parkinson had a few words of advice: “Although it’s not completely clear what sustainability fully means, if a city doesn’t look to maximise it in everything it does it shouldn’t be doing it. The benefits European cities have over the newer cities in Asia and the East is authenticity. They have civility and tradition that the upstart cities can’t hope to match, and those things count.”