Core Cities Summit 2005 - Core Cities Mean Business
On the 14th and 15th July, the Core Cities held their fifth Summit, hosted this year by Leeds City Council.
The theme for the 2005 Summit was Core Cities Mean Business with over 300 delegates from around the country in attendance. The event sought to develop a greater understanding of how Core Cities and business interests can work together to generate future growth, investment and success.
The Summit brought together a wealth of expertise, including key public policy makers and businesses. Speakers included The Rt. Hon. David Miliband MP, Minister of Communities and Local Government, Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development, Nick Pearce Director, Institute for Public Policy Research, Roger Blitz Chair, City Regions Commission and UK Affairs Editor, Financial Times and David Frost, Director General, British Chambers of Commerce Group.
In addition, a number of high profile speakers from a range of organisations led a series of symposia to debate specific aspects of the going for growth agenda. The symposia topics included attracting investment to support city centre renaissance, creating skills and futures, exploiting new ideas and becoming more effective markets for innovation and looking at what can be done to deliver an integrated transport system to support city-region competitiveness.
The summit also showcased exhibitions from a wide variety of organisations. Including GVA Grimley, Arup, Big Lottery Fund, New Start and the ODPM. Special thanks go to Hammerson, the main sponsor of this year’s event.
The event began with a day of site and study tours in and around Leeds looking at areas of renaissance, regeneration, innovation and business strengths, including a visit to Holbeck Urban Village, Bradford’s Lister Mills, Yorkshire Post Newspapers and Leeds University. This was followed by a VIP reception and dinner with keynote speaker Baroness Andrews, Minister of State for Housing and Planning.
The main event opened with a choice of two optional business breakfasts, one focusing on businesses and the Core Cities sponsored by the British Chambers of Commerce Core Cities Group. The other was sponsored by Yorkshire and Humber Key Cities and discussed how the lessons of Core Cities are being put into practice at a regional level; and how cities can collaborate to gain competitive advantage.
The first plenary session presented an introduction to the recent work of the Core Cities Group and progressed to a high level panel discussion providing an overview of how cities can be catalysts for investment and growth. Presentations were made on the Core Cities growth agenda, putting city-region thinking on economic growth into practice and where next for city-regions.
The Minister spoke of his optimism that our cities could reach what he
termed ‘the Champions League’ of international cities. Outlining
how three regional cities; Valencia, Turin and Hamburg, had raised their
game in European terms, and that the English Core Cites can succeed because
of a number of critical positive factors. He argued that the Core Cities are on the up, there is a real buzz, excitement
and pride in our Core Cities, which now have a real sense of place. We
‘know what works’ in terms of building partnerships across
the public and private sectors in cities, investing in infrastructure
and leading civic renewal ‘from the bottom up’. English cities
still have comparative competitive advantages internationally including
the stable macroeconomic climate, advantages of language, the strengths
of the higher education sector and their population diversity. The minister set out his vision of the requirements to capitalise on
these advantages. He discussed how local and national government could
further exploit five key drivers: physical and social infrastructure investment,
good public services which attract and keep people in cities, maximising
resources and the leverage of public money, values and identity, and leadership.
In terms of leadership he argued the need for a clear vision, an ability
to take tough choices and drive through core priorities. Identifying opportunities
to nurture and harness leadership skills from across the public, private
and voluntary sectors are critical to future success. Speaking on the
issue of values and identity, he argued that cities need to forge a distinctive
identity based on their particular strengths and assets. David Miliband went on to explain that there was potentially scope for
a new deal for cities, moving the debate forward to develop dynamic leadership
in cities. This new deal might involve local people having more of a say
in ‘how’ things are done locally (decentralisation) or also
in terms of both ‘what’ is done and ‘how’ (devolution).
He announced a series of Urban Summits jointly with Government to explore
these challenging issues beginning this autumn with the eight Core Cities.
Each of these events would explore common issues and distinctive challenges
facing the country’s major urban centres and feed into work in progress
on the State of the Cities report. The Summit then continued with delegates attending one of four symposia
looking at the key components required to create prosperous cities and
city regions. The event closed with a speech from Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP, Secretary
of State for International Development He commented on the pride that
could now be felt in revitalised city centres. He contrasted the UK position
with that in developing countries, which are undergoing the biggest process
of urban development ever seen. He went on to explain his government role
and how we can learn from Britain’s historic urban development and
work in developing countries.