Date: Wed 11th November, 2009
Venue:
Number of Guests Attended: 80
More than 80 business people turned up at the Sixways Stadium in Worcester for Midlands Business Insider’s latest economic forum.
They heard a lively question and answer-based discussion chaired by Insider editor Andy Coyne and featuring Howard Skerry, head of business development at the University of Worcester and Alan White, chief executive of the Central Technology Belt, amongst others.
The debate ranged from the impact of the recession on the area’s economy to inward investment plans and the problem of people living in the county but commuting into Birmingham to work.
Tony Hyde, group managing director of locally-based construction firm Thomas Vale, told the audience that his firm made the right strategic decision a couple of years ago to focus on the public sector.
“About 80 per cent of our work is now in the public sector. That work is partnership work and is for five years’ duration. At the moment we’ve got £550m worth of forward workload. Having said that, the industry consists of 96,000 comapnies and a lot of them are SMEs and it is in a real mire at the moment,” he said.
“The real concern is the public sector spend. Cuts have been predicted of between 18and 40 per cent in capital spend.”
Skerry said a lot of companies are still reluctant to invest and take on risk. “But I suspect that there isn’t as much wrong with the Worcestershire economy as there is in other areas of the country. But we have to keep it like that. There is a dynamism and a diversity in the county which is really refreshing,” he said.
White said he would like to see a move away from a reliance on more traditional sectors, particularly in the north of the county which relies on the automotive sector. “QinetiQ in Malvern is a fantastic facility. If we were in America we would see a whole cluster of activity around that facility to benefit from it. That has happened to an extent with the Malvern Hills Science Park, but I would like to see that happen much more,” he said.
Philip Roberts, partnerships director at Advantage West Midlands, told the audience that the level of out-commuting to the Black Country and Birmingham is an issue. “For this to reverse there needs to be a balance between employment growth and housing growth,” he said.
Read the full debate in the January issue of Midlands Business Insider.
