2023: a year in review
As the year comes to an end, John Wilkinson, Director of the Western Gateway, takes a look back at how far the partnership has come this year - and what's coming up in 2024.
As I end my first full year as Director of the Western Gateway Partnership, I want to share a few reflections on 2023 and thoughts for the year ahead.
First, 2023 has exceeded all the expectations I had when I took up the post.
The Western Gateway Partnership was built from the bottom up, led by Council Leaders convinced their future would be better through collaboration with neighbouring authorities within a shared economic geography. That vision was caught by business and academic leaders to create the partnership we have now. I feel that strong sense of ownership and growing confidence and ambition week after week.
We’ve seen this in action:
- With our Western Gateway pavilion at UKREiiF we brought together up to 26 local authorities alongside business and academic representatives over three great days in Leeds to shout about why our area has so much to offer the UK.
- Our Hydrogen Gateway conference, where over 500 people came to the International Convention Centre Wales in Newport to showcase the best of our Hydrogen economy and bring together major industry across South Wales and Western England.
- We launched our 2050 rail vision which paints a transformative picture of what a better public transport network could achieve for our area. With support from local authorities, businesses and members of parliament, we have already seen announcements for new funding and we are preparing a ‘rail deal’ to show how our ambitious plans can be delivered.
- And this year’s Autumn Political Party conferences, where our local leaders demonstrated to national politicians how together, we can deliver for the UK’s economy.
Second, we have built some strong foundations for delivery. This year we have focussed a lot of work on our low carbon energy programme. For instance, we launched our Hydrogen delivery pathway and continue to develop a strong partnership with industry through Hydrogen South West and the South Wales Industrial Cluster. We are getting ready to launch our commission to explore options for harnessing sustainable energy from the Severn Estuary and are continuing to promote our unique opportunities to push forward a new generation of nuclear technology, bringing a host of international investors and developers to the area.
We have also led work to support one of the area’s most unifying strengths, our world leading tech expertise, with plans to launch and define the UK’s first pan nation Cyber Super Cluster early in the new year. We are also updating our economic evidence base following the pandemic so we know exactly what challenges and opportunities our communities face and understand how our partnership can help.
Third, we need to do more to deliver on these opportunities and turn them into tangible impact. That’s why we have just launched our investment finance commission, which will be reporting in early 2024. We don’t want to just talk about opportunity, we want to show how our ambitious places can turn their plans into reality by bringing in the necessary public and private finance. And we are developing our international strategy to make sure we can show case even more effectively our ambitious plans on a world stage.
All of this has only been possible with the leadership of our out-going Chair Katherine Bennett who has steered the partnership over the past 4 years. We will all miss her, but I am looking forward to welcoming our new Chair in early 2024.
We are entering a critical year for the Western Gateway. We believe we are ready to show that we have what it takes to deal with some of the real world challenges our communities face. In the Summer we will be launching our manifesto to show why our area is ready to become the Centre of the UK’s future economy.
I am more excited than ever about the prospects for the Western Gateway. But we can only achieve our potential through the support of our partners and business community, staying focussed on the things where our scale can make a difference and by showing we have the capability and ideas to deliver for our communities, working with our Governments as true partners for the long term.
Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas and look forward to working with you in 2024.
