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This is, in part, due to the industrial make up of the area. Much manufacturing is still of the back street, traditional variety and the automotive industry has been decimated over the last decade. But there are signs of brighter times ahead. Organisations such as the Manufacturing Advisory Service WM and MedilinkWM have worked hard to re-direct manufacturing firms towards growth sectors such as aerospace, renewable energies and medical technologies.

There is a feeling locally that medtech could be a real growth area for the region, nurtured by the region’s cutting edge universities and science parks – which offer excellent offices to let in the West Midlands – and the research capabilities of Birmingham’s new £545m ‘super hospital’. There are already more medtech companies in the West Midlands than in any other region in the UK and further growth seems assured.

Another key area of growth may be to build on the area’s multi-cultural population to make further inroads into the markets of Asia, in particular. Plans to increase the length of the runway at Birmingham Airport will help here as it will facilitate non-stop, long-haul flights to the key cities of the Far East.

But there is no escaping the fact that there are a number of fundamental issues that have to be sorted out if the West Midlands is to prosper. Much regeneration and development has focused on the city centres and between these and the wealthier outer suburbs there is, in most of our cities, a ‘doughnut’ of deprivation in the inner cities. Regional support, in whatever shape it takes, will need to prioritise job creation in these areas if we are not to store up huge problems for the future.