Brighton – a super city?

Plans are afoot to work out whether Brighton can help lead Britain out of recession. Frank le Duc reports

More than a hundred local business leaders met for lunch recently to start mapping the route to Brighton and Hove becoming a ‘super city’. The potential was identified three years ago in a report by the Future Laboratory for HSBC bank called ‘The Future of Business’ and a follow-up report with the same name last year. It predicted that Brighton would be one of five super cities to lead Britain out of recession. It said that this was, “a dynamic centre for innovative companies forging novel ways of doing business”.

‘The Future of Business’ described Brighton as, “the capital of the UK’s rebellious alternative economy”. It cited the way in which Wired Sussex has encouraged the growth of digital companies in and around Brighton. The report’s author, Martin Raymond, also came up with some new words such as ‘exportential’ and ‘tradicals’ to describe the types of businesses that would drive the economy in super cities.

The jargon may not have caught on. Indeed plenty of those attending the business lunch last week were keen to cut through the jargon with their questions and opinions. The event, held in newly refurbished Sovereign House in Church Street, Brighton, looked at how we might achieve super city status over the next 20 years. It also marked the start of a consultation about a policy document being drawn up by the Brighton and Hove Economic Partnership. A first version will be drafted by consultants who will go back to businesses and others to canvass their views before a final version is published.

What do these reports and policy documents matter in the real world? Do busy businessmen and women really care what it says in some dry and dusty list of aspirations? To judge by the turnout and the conversation at the lunchtime event, the answer is yes. The economic strategy is likely to be adopted not just by the Economic Partnership but also by Brighton and Hove City Council and the local Strategic Partnership. And even the early version will be pored over by solicitors, estate agents, accountants, firms looking to move, those looking to expand and those thinking about coming to the city.

JOBS NEEDED
The economic strategy will be expected to be consistent with the City Plan. This is also being drawn up at the moment and will spell out which land can be used for housing, which for offices and which for shops, etc. And it will sit alongside the City Employment and Skills Plan. This forecast that Brighton and Hove would need to create 6,000 jobs in the coming few years just for employment levels in the city to stay the same.

Now the first figures from the census last year have been published, the estimated need for jobs has risen. There are 273,000 people living in Brighton and Hove – a significantly higher number than previously thought. Many of those people are working but, as the coalition government tries to trim the size and scale of the public sector, this will add to the challenges ahead.

So part of the role of these plans, strategies and policy documents is to map out how Brighton and Hove can encourage businesses to start or locate here. And, when they do, to work out where they can find the right kind of premises. This is why the Economic Partnership has employed two firms of consultants to apply their expertise.

GREENER GOALS
Just under a fortnight ago, Roger Tym and Partners were appointed to review the current Brighton and Hove economic strategy which was published in 2008. Then we were on the cusp of the global economic downturn. Few would have dared to predict the depth and duration of the recession that followed and from which we still haven’t
truly emerged.

Since the strategy was published the Green Party has taken control of the council. It didn’t win a majority in the May elections last year, but it has suffered relatively few defeats since forming the administration. Not surprisingly the Greens are keen for the new economic strategy to place a greater emphasis on reducing the city’s carbon footprint in the light of continuing concerns about global warming.

To help bring a greener veneer to the strategy, five companies were shortlisted and interviewed. The selection panel was made up of Geoff Raw, the council’s strategic director of place, Steve Allen, a member of the board of the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership, Vic Borrill, director of the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership, and Simon Newell, head of partnerships and external relations at the Brighton and Hove Strategic Partnership.

The panel chose the award-winning social enterprise BioRegional which formulated the principles for One Planet Living. The Greens have placed a great deal of store by One Planet Living principles. These evolved after an estimate that the resources we currently consume and the waste we generate would require the equivalent of more than three planets. A more sustainable approach is called for.

The Labour and Conservative parties have dismissed efforts by the Greens to adopt One Planet Living principles as a ‘pet project’. In reality many of the goals being pursued are similar to those of both opposition parties when they ran the council. And, although the Greens make a point of underlining the benefits in terms of sustainability, there is a strong strand of ‘spending to save’ and sound financial management underpinning key decisions.

SEIZING THE MOMENT
Tony Mernagh, the executive director of the Economic Partnership, said, “We might have the potential to become a super city but achieving it will be very difficult. There are lots of issues that we have to face and we have to start dealing with them very soon. If we don’t, the opportunity will slip by. What is a super city? It’s all about the economics really. It’s a city that can seize the opportunities of the next generation industries.”

Some have said that Brighton is a leader in the digital sector but Mr Mernagh said, “Digital isn’t a sector. It’s like calling the industrial revolution a sector. Digital touches every sector.” He said that digital technology was transforming almost every part of the economy and business landscape. He added, “It’s called the CDIT sector – the creative, digital and IT sector – and it’s growing at more than twice the national rate and that’s growing at nine per cent. In Brighton it’s 22 per cent.”

He said that environmental or sustainable technology was another area in which Brighton and Hove had some distinct advantages. These include sustainable transport, sustainable or renewable energy and sustainable housing. “The only one we’ve got a real advantage in is sustainable housing. There’s huge potential demand for retrofit – 75 per cent of our housing was built before 1945. It’s not particularly energy-efficient.

“The other industry where there is potential is health and life sciences. With the £420 million redevelopment of the Royal Sussex County Hospital and with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School there is an enormous opportunity to become a centre of excellence. The medical school was only founded ten years ago but already it’s the most popular medical school in the country. The hospital is one of the most important developments in Brighton since the Brighton Centre was built. We’ve got to exploit that.

“But on top of all that we’ve got the very real challenge of how we grow more sustainably. We’ve got a population that’s 15 per cent bigger than we thought, mostly all of working age. We knew we had to create 6,000 jobs in the next few years just to stand still. That was based on the old population figures. How do we do that now without increasing our carbon footprint? I would like to think that reducing the carbon footprint of the city was something that all the parties supported. How far down that line can we go while still generating jobs?”

SOMEWHERE TO LIVE
“Another challenge we face is how do we house our workforce? Using the old population figures, we needed 19,400 homes. We couldn’t do that even if we used every available bit of land, every brownfield site and converted some office space. So we agreed that we could build 11,400 homes. Then there’s transport.

“Every day 13,000 people go to London to work and 33,000 leave the city going north. Why? Because that’s where the higher paid jobs are. How do we generate higher paid jobs here so that they don’t have to? If we can’t house our workforce and we can’t create jobs for them, how can we become a super city?

“The economic strategy is required not just because the new administration wants a greener strategy. There are a number of things happening with central government where you need your ducks in a row. The government hasn’t got as much money, so they have an idea and ask people to show they can do it, or they ask for ideas.”

He said that the £24 million being offered for a ‘future cities demonstrator’ was a good example. The application goes in next month at about the same time that Business Minister Lord Green and the export trade body UKTI is bringing a high-powered delegation to Brighton. Mr Mernagh said, “We need to have a robust strategy in place to show them that we know where we are going. The ideas in the bid that we’re putting together can be done even if we don’t get the money. It’s about open data. It’ll be harder without the money but it’s possible.”

The point of having a strategy, he said, was to have a timed and costed action plan. Things may slip. Some of the ideas may not happen. Others will emerge. In some ways it was a bit of a wish list. But he said that it was important to plan ahead, “Even in the depths of this recession people still want to build. Hove station is a case in point. In good times, people think it’s never going to end. In bad times, people think it’s never going to end. But it will.” And part of the role of the economic strategy is to help bring the right people together to turn the bad times to good. And maybe map the way to becoming a super city.