Levelling Up top civil servant gets a tour of the Western Gateway
The Western Gateway recently played host to Sarah Healey, the newly appointed Permanent Secretary for The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in her first area visit since starting in post. The visit pulled together local leaders, businesses and universities to demonstrate our strong partnership and the value that investing in South Wales and Western England can offer. Our Director John Wilkinson gives his take on the visit.
We were delighted to recently host the new Levelling Up Permanent Secretary, Sarah Healey, in her first week in the role for a two-day visit to Bristol and Cardiff.
In the Western Gateway, we have a real challenge. Despite world leading industry, innovative businesses and a highly skilled work force, we still have pockets of deprivation and lag behind the average UK productivity.
We are an area with massive opportunity. As a partnership we are focused on building on our strengths and increasing investment to create good jobs and better connect people to opportunity so we can deliver a greener fairer future for our area.
One way to do this is to ensure we have a functioning public transport system which enables people to travel to opportunities across our area. With over 80,000 journeys across the Severn every day, we know that there is the demand. However, our area has historic issues with transport and the least well- connected core city in the UK according to a recent government study.
On this visit we were able to show the new permanent secretary projects which are already transforming how our communities travel and opening up new opportunities for them.
Bristol Temple Quarter promises to deliver a world-class transport gateway for the South West and South Wales, creating up to 10,000 new homes, new jobs and sustainably regenerating the city centre with an improved central train station.
With recently announced support from Welsh and UK Governments, the Cardiff Crossrail programme promises to massively improve journeys within the capital city of Wales.
There can be few places in the UK where two core cities, just 50 miles apart, are transforming their railway stations and their surrounds and connecting them to nearby communities to such an extent.
Our soon to be published 2050 rail vision will show that by building on already approved schemes, such as these, we could halve journey times from Swansea to Bristol, helping to overcome productivity hurdles to add a further £34bn to the UK Economy.
We were then able to sit down with Sarah to showcase the opportunities that investing in our area can unlock. Chief Executives from Local Authorities from across England and Wales, the West of England Combined Authority, the South Wales Industrial Cluster, the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses and the GW4 University Alliance came together to demonstrate how we are collaborating to become a Green Energy Powerhouse, driving the transition to Net Zero for the whole of the UK.
It is so important to understand that Levelling Up is not just a North versus South issue – if we want to enable real transformation we need to connect communities with opportunity across the UK.
Building on our strong partnership of local leaders and businesses we are already delivering our collective vision for the future and we look forward to working together with Governments in Wales and England to drive the positive change we all want for our communities.
I’d like to thank the Permanent Secretary for her time and look forward to continuing to work together.
