It won’t be Sir Terry Leahy and it won’t be Rod Holmes – the list of big shots who say they do not want to chair the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership is growing. Leahy and Holmes, however, both of whom have ruled themselves out for the top job, are expected to be the powers behind the throne at the Liverpool LEP – whoever occupies it.
Yet some wonder how the new body will fit into a Merseyside regeneration scene still overburdened with quangos and committees.
Questions are also being asked about the big policy picture as Leahy prepares to file his Liverpool economic strategy report with the prime minister in Downing Street.
The strategy will be about focusing economic growth in a handful of business sectors. High-glitz marketing will be replaced with a clear-eyed strategy to improve economic outputs and productivity. Insiders say there will be no mention of The Beatles, and none of the wet-eyed nostalgia about the past that, some claim, has too often hobbled Liverpool’s future.
With the appointment of an LEP chairman days away, and the publication of the strategy document imminent, EG talked to both men about the way head for Liverpool’s economy.
The bones of the new strategy
• Strong focus on economic growth
• Emphasis on tourism: the conference centre and arena
• Growth in the knowledge industries, especially life sciences and advanced manufacturing
• Mersey Superport as a route to growth
• Exploit the new Wirral and North Liverpool Enterprise Zones
• Less marketing, more delivery
• More talk about the future, less talk about the past
Sir Terry Leahy – the man with the plan
In March, recently retired Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy turned down the offer of chairmanship of the Liverpool City Region LEP.
The move, which dismayed his many friends in the city of his birth, left the fledgling LEP looking rudderless.
The decision came as a surprise. Leahy appeared to be a shoo-in for the job after prime minister David Cameron announced in January that Leahy, together with Lord Heseltine, would draw up a regional economic plan that would stimulate growth in Liverpool, Knowsley, St Helens, Wirral, Halton and Sefton.
The report, due to land on Cameron’s desk any day now, is expected to state in the plain language for which Leahy is famous that there must be an end to the “scattergun” approach to regeneration.
A strong focus on economic growth means concentrating on the knowledge sector, plans for the Port of Liverpool, and on tourism, he will say.
Making the most of the opportunities presented by the new North Wirral and North Liverpool Enterprise Zones will also be a central feature of the document.
“I can’t give chairing the LEP the time it deserves,” says Leahy. “I live in London, and as chair you have to bring the team together and spend time that I couldn’t give it. I’m very happy, though, to sit on the LEP board.”
Leahy’s hope is that Merseysiders will think more about the future and dwell a little less on the glories of the past.
He says that, after years of decline during the 1980s and 90s, the city started to transform in 2000, implementing a regeneration of the city centre, culminating in being awarded capital of culture status in 2008.
“For the first time in one hundred years it struck home to Liverpool people that their future was bigger than their past,” he adds. “What the city council got right was a bold ambitious plan, and their timing.”
Although Leahy praises Merseyside’s performance over the past decade, economic output and productivity are still below the UK average.
He says: “The LEP should be the vehicle for implementing a growth strategy for Liverpool, and it also has to be about the city-region, not just the city. The new Enterprise Zones will be an important driver for growth over the whole area.”
The key, instead, is to make the city appealing to investors, Leahy insists.
“The city council got it bang on in the 2000s, and transformed the city centre as a tourist and business destination, and with that comes investment and jobs,” he claims. “Given 1990s starting point for regeneration, progress has been absolutely remarkable.”
Referring to his draft strategy, Leahy says. “I have no idea what the prime minister will do with it.”
Despite the appearance of modesty, nobody expects the pithily-worded document to languish in the Number 10 in-tray for very long.
Rod Holmes – the guy with the eye
Rod Holmes knows what he does not want, and what he does not want is lots more glossy but empty marketing material singing Liverpool’s praises.
“It’s an obsession of mine,” says Holmes, chair of The Mersey Partnership and until recently a leading private sector member of the Liverpool city-region’s ruling cabinet. I don’t believe in marketing unless and until you’ve got a bloody good product.”
As the project director behind Grosvenor’s £1bn Liverpool One retail scheme, widely praised for single-handedly reviving the city’s retail appeal, Holmes knows what he is talking about.
Today, Holmes is a member of the Liverpool City Region LEP board but not, contrary to widespread belief, its chairman. Until later this month, it only has a deputy chairman, Stobart Ports managing director Steve O’Connor.
Holmes says the Liverpool City Region LEP will not fall into the trap of mistaking a marketing strategy for an economic strategy. Nor will it be spending money on posters, because it has no money to spend on anything.
Evolving plans to boost growth by trebling trade through a beefed-up Mersey Superport (Peel launched a masterplan exercise earlier this month) point the way, says Holmes.
The plan could mean the port handling 90m tonnes of cargo a year, and include the creation of a £200m in-river container berth able to cope with the world’s largest cargo ships.
“Look at the way we’ve been working on the Superport idea,” says Holmes. “We didn’t start with a load of marketing brouhaha. Instead we brainstormed with the big shipping lines until we had a convincing plan for the kind of container terminal we needed. The same delivery-driven approach will apply in other parts of the economy.”
He insists the LEP will not be directed by people who have never worked in or understood the private sector. It will be much more collaborative. “This is going to need a bit of intellectual rigour. There are shelves of books on how to grow a business, but very little on how to grow an economy,” Holmes confesses.
He is acutely aware that the Superport, knowledge and visitor economy cannot just be catch-all phrases. The devil is in the detail.
“We know what it means in detail. It means the life sciences, advance manufacturing, making the most of cultural assets such as the arena and the conference centre, and using the Mersey ports as the entry point for the north of England and Northern Ireland.
“We have already had dialogue with the government, right up to the level of the prime minister, on how to make the most of the port estuary.”
Later this month, the LEP will begin to select partners to work with it on delivering the detail of its growth strategy. Today, Holmes says he is just “assisting” the LEP. Many would like him to become the permanent chair, but Holmes quickly shies away from the possibility.
“I’m sorting and helping,” he insists. It is the kind of sorting and helping many in Liverpool would like to see more of.
“For the first time in one hundred years it struck home to Liverpool people that their future was bigger than their past. What the city council got right was a bold ambitious plan, and their timing.”
