Date: Tue 15th December, 2009
Venue:
Number of Guests Attended: 110
Development continues apace in Salford, but what’s it all aiming for? Insider gathered an expert panel at the Lowry Hotel to discuss the key targets as Salford plots its route to growth
It’s been documented in this month’s Insider and elsewhere that Salford’s bucking a trend in that development activity’s still going on, but it’s an under-reported fact that it is bucking a longer-term population trend.
As Chris Farrow, chief executive of the Central Salford urban regeneration company, told the 100-plus audience gathered here, the last decade has been the first time in 50 years that its population has increased, much of it with people completely new to the Greater Mancherster city region.
It sets in context the point made by Drivers Jonas partner Simon Bedford, a panelist here in the final Insider breakfast of the year. “It’s easy to say that things like MediaCity don’t benefit local people, but the population here as in other places has changed dramatically and will continue to do so. It also ignores the fact that a huge amount has been done away from the glamour spots, in areas like Charlestown and Broughton – although there are still too many places people who have a choice don’t want to live in.”
The project that can make the difference, Bedford said, is English Cities Fund’s Chapel Street mixed-use zone – think Spinningfields meets the Northern Quarter. Bedford said: “Physically, that space is important. It doesn’t look great now but it’s what Manchester’s Northern Quarter looked like ten years ago. Chapel Street can be a big factor in people spending their time and money on the Salford side of the river.”
Music industry entrepreneur Ruth Daniel, who represents several businesses including Fat Northerner Records and the Unconvention conference, said: “There is an opportunity to really welcome and support creative businesses. We’ve taken unconventional space above the Black Lion pub and have brought five small businesses across from the Northern Quarter. But start-ups find equipment expensive and a facility to share costs would be great.”
Professor Martin Hall, vice-chancellor of the University of Salford, supported Daniel’s point. He said: “We need to do more in giving start-ups what they want. Short-term leases, maybe as short as a month with no extra costs, security, and better broadband access, which is something the whole city region has been lacking in.
“But from the universities’ side there’s not been a clear idea of how we can work with business. There’s often as assumption that because you have universities, it becomes jobs and business investment by osmosis. But if you don’t invest in the processes that make ideas commercial or develop graduates, it doesn’t happen.”
Asked which sectors would be important to growth other than creative industries, Hall said: “Health is important and is an area we see changing with digital technology.” Both Bedford and Farrow indicated that the promotion of manufacturing at some level should happen, with Bedford adding that Salford’s proximity to Manchester made it better placed to benefit from the senior city’s perceived sucking in of investment to the exclusion of smaller centres.
Farrow concluded: “We’re moving into the digital age and the rules have changed in so many ways. All the great success stories of the last few years were complete unknowns five years ago. We’re here to invent the future.”
