Western Gateway Pavilion attracts large crowds at UKREiiF 25

This year’s UK Real Estate infrastructure and investment Forum brought together the best of South Wales and Western England for one final time at the Western Gateway Pavilion to turbocharge investment into the area.

For the last four years, the Western Gateway has been bringing together and providing a platform for local authorities from across South Wales and Western England to champion investment at the UK’s largest investment conference.  This year’s event again proved to be bigger than before with thousands of people heading to Leeds for a packed-out event and areas across the UK represented to demonstrate the best of what the union has to offer to a national and international audience of investors and developers.

As UKREiiF has grown, so has our cross-border presence.  This year’s event was the partnership’s largest pavilion yet, representing 28 local authorities from Pembrokeshire over to Swindon with some of the area’s biggest hitters taking the stage to promote the area’s potential to investors, developers and constructions companies.

This included the newly elected Mayor of the West of England, Helen Godwin alongside a cross-party group of leaders including Cllr Huw Thomas, Leader of Cardiff, Cllr Mary Ann Brocklesby, Chair of Cardiff Capital Region, Cllr Darren Price, Vice Chair of the South West Wales Corporate Joint Committee, Cllr Tony Dyer, Leader of Bristol, Cllr Dimitri Batrouni, Leader of Newport, and Cllr Mike Bell, the leader of North Somerset.

Alongside these elected leaders were businesses and developers delivering large scale opportunities to transform the region for the future economy.  Colin Skellet, Chief Executive for YTL Developments, Luciana Ciubotariu, Chief Executive of the Celtic Freeport, Lyn Garner, the newly announced Chair of the Bristol Temple Quarter LLP, alongside representatives from CBRE, BBRC and Amber Infrastructure all joined forces to champion the area and it’s potential to drive the UK’s economy.

Western Gateway research shows that the economy of South Wales and Western England is likely grow faster than any other part of the UK outside of London over the next five years. At UKREiiF the Western Gateway Pavilion brought together leaders with business to attract the extra investment to capitalise on this potential and deliver for the UK economy.

Key to the discussion, the key projects and enablers to driving growth across the region, including:

• Europe’s largest regeneration project with a plan to deliver up to 10,000 new homes and 22,000 new jobs across 135 hectares of land at Bristol Temple Quarter.
• How Cardiff Capital Region is using devolved powers and its own investment funds to support innovation, housing, business growth and regeneration.
• The trailblazing Brabazon project, transforming the 380-acre former Filton Airfield in North Bristol to deliver 6,500 new homes, three new schools, three hotels, over 3 million square feet of commercial space and up to 2,000 beds of student accommodation.
• The wide range of diverse developments looking to create sustainable growth in South West Wales including making sure local communities benefit from the transformational opportunities coming from Floating Offshore Wind in the Celtic Sea.
• And what come’s next for efforts to harness the incredible power of the Severn Estuary with the potential to deliver up to 7 per cent of the UK’s total energy needs.

This year the Western Gateway Pavilion was supported by our key event partners in West of England Mayoral Combined Authority and Cardiff Capital Region with additional content from South West Wales Corporate Joint Committee.  The tent was also made possible by YTL Developments and Bristol Airport, sponsoring to support the area’s ambitions for greater growth.

Once again, our area has demonstrated its willingness to collaborate over border to achieve more for the 4.5 million people who live here.

Whilst this is likely to be the last time the Western Gateway goes to the conference as a formal partnership, all our partners are ready to deliver on the opportunities we’ve been able to highlight through working together.  Here’s to a greener, fairer future.