LIVERPOOL is ready to become a leading European city that will rival places such as Milan, Rotterdam and Turin, communities and local government minister Ruth Kelly has said.

In a speech to a summit meeting of civic leaders from ten English cities, Ms Kelly said Liverpool had the chance to become "an engine of growth" for the region and a major international player on the international stage.

A independent report for government called State of the English Cities showed that Liverpool has experienced an urban renaissance since 1997, with strong economic growth, higher levels of employment and noticeable improvements to the local environment.

But it also concluded more was needed to be done if it was to become a city of European importance.

Ms Kelly said: "Our cities have turned the corner in recent years. In Liverpool, the big increase in the number of graduates in the workforce is supporting the growth of dynamic new economic sectors in the local economies.

"However, we know there is still much more to do. We must be ambitious and visionary. Liverpool has the opportunity not only to become an engine of growth for its region - a Rotterdam of the North West, but also to compete on the international stage.

"Over the next 20 years, with its diverse economic base, it should be looking to rival places such as Milan, Rotterdam and Turin in the international arena."

She added: "This is a new exciting time for our cities and regions.

"We in government need to look at devolving more strategic powers to cities and they need to have governance arrangements that provide a clear mandate to take the tough decisions.

"Being bold and strongly led, we can take our cities to the next level."

Ms Kelly highlighted the Government's work to strengthen the urban renaissance at a summit in Bristol yesterday.

The Government is already working with a range of UK cities, including the 8 Core Cities, to help them develop "business cases" to deliver a step change in their economic, social and cultural performance.

Her speech is the clearest indication yet that the region will be viewed favourably by the Government's 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. The Government also plans a parliamentary paper on the future of local government expected to push ahead with plans to create authorities serving wider areas. source (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=17297553%26method=full%26siteid=50061% 26headline=liverpool%2dready%2dto%2dbe%2done%2dof% 2dgreat%2dcities%2dof%2deurope%2d-name_page.html)

Ruth Kelly's speech was covered in yesterday's Guardian

" Kelly wants to give big cities power to run regions

Patrick Wintour, political editor
Monday June 26, 2006
The Guardian


The government will today enthusiastically back the idea of mayors running new city regions in England, with powers matching those of the mayor of London. "

Strange that the Daily Post decided not to mention the key bit of the speech...MAYORS.

Of course it could just be that the speech was a bit complicated and they didn't fully understand the press releases from Kelly's department.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/localgovernment/story/0,,1805905,00.html

This is all very weird. I've read the speech on the DCLG website, and none of this stuff about Liverpool being Rotterdam is in the text. Did she ad lib? Or have regional press officers given a local gloss to her speech? I don't understand this. Where they told "just say whatever cities you've got can be something sexy sounding.......Mansfield can be our Miami, Liverpool can be our Rotterdam, who cares, it's bull****"

There is, however, something in the formal text of the "official" speech that concerns me very much. Well actually a few things.

Firstly, the evidence as assembled is a bit messy and over-stated. She asserts that there is no successful region that does not contain a successful city (a bit tautological and very much chicken-and-egg in some cases). However, she then goes to extend this to the cases of Ireland and the Czech Republic. Well, they are both small countries with one dominant but not huge city, but neither are very urban nations in the way say Holland is. If anything, Dublin has benefitted from the overall growth of the Irish economy in the past thirty years, rather than the other way round. Chicken-and-egg arguments are fine, but I am left wondering why she felt the need to extend her argument to those cases, if she felt the basic case was so strong.

Secondly, she says "We need our cities and towns to be both competitors and collaborators: to strive to excel individually in economic performance and quality of life but also to recognise shared opportunities, put aside aprochial concerns and maximise joint advantage". What a gorgeous collection of words that is. In other words, talk competition but don't compete. There was nothing in her speech that demonstrated any real understanding of the nature of value of competition, because that is something that her Department totally fails to grasp and that London-based national civil servants are fearful of. The evidence to support her case here is missing, and the policy thinking, in as much as she articulates it, appears fluffy and flawed.

Thirdly, but most seriously, there is a line in the "Conclusions" section that worries me greatly. This section I suppose allows her to go beyond what is evidenced, to what as a politician and Minister she believes. And what she believes is this: "I think we must aspire to having a number of cities that are genuine global leaders as well as being engines of growth in their region- a Barcelona of the North, a Milan of the Midlands and a Seattle of the West and powerful cities in other parts of the country." This seems to have been reported (or maybe she actually said in her speech what her officials won't actually publish in the official version) as meaning that Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol have especial roles and value over and above other core cities.

DCLG seems to have gone out of its way to commission research that will lead it to support this odd view, and has drawn on largely Manchester based academics, who have tended to choose Manchester as a case study for the relevant research projects to inform policy, and have concluded that Manchester is qualitatively different and capable of far far more than other Northern cities. They (a team at Salford in particular, who seem very influential) argue that Government should big-up Manchester as a counter-weight to London, whatever "counterweight" actually means. In practice, it means the BBC relocating to Manchester and not still not having any tv presence in Liverpool, it means Manchester Airport being allowed to veto expansion at LJLA, and it means that Manchester as a city will be allowed to draw local taxes from people as far away as Warrington to pay for city-centre improvements, more trams, etc., without Liverpool city council getting a penny from them to pay for city centre services.

There is no evidence at all - that is robust or reliable - to support this view that just a small group of cities should be bigged-up. Economists claim it offers "agglomeration benefits" but first of all the designation of a "bigged-up" city doesn't actually make it so (although Government policies, such as the BBC relocation, does all it can to create that outcome). There are costs and disbenefits of denuding centres like Sheffield, Newcastle and Liverpool of their roles as regional centres. You can't ever have everything, and Government cannot build a mini-London in Manchester (which I think some wish to) and simultaneoulsy support the development of a strong, competitive Liverpool - the former will drain services and businesses away, just as London drains business away from any town within 100 miles of it. Government policy, appearing to be decentralising, is actually just seeking to shift the poles of centralised power, and has nothing at all to do with making our regional centres strong in the European sense.

It was a bad speech for Liverpool, and indicates that Government wishes to see a relatively smaller, weaker and poorer Liverpool if that is the price to be paid for a highly experimental goal of creating a few "global" cities - Manchester, Birmingham, and perhaps also Bristol or Leeds.

LIVERPOOL is ready to become a leading European city that will rival places such as Milan, Rotterdam and Turin, communities and local government minister Ruth Kelly has said.


Anything to prevent the interference of London and Whitehall. The powerbase of the UK is southern based (Oxford-Cambridge-London) populated by predominately public school educated naïve to the world southerners.

They raped the north of England to keep power in the rural south. The Customs House in Liverpool was burnt out in WW2, instead of revamping the building they demolished it and moved operations to London.

In the early 1930s two Liverpool lines were building the largest ships in the world, the Queen Mary and the Oceanic 3, then the depression hit. The government offered 9.5 million pounds to merge the Cunard and White Star line and get the Queen Mary completed, which was a rust hulk in a Glasgow shipyard with work stopped and offer the lucrative royal mail route to North America. There was one condition – the top line ships had to use Southampton in the south, not Liverpool the main liner terminal. The Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were the largest ships in the world for near 40 years. They both had Liverpool on their sterns, yet not one of them ever sailed up the Mersey. The rape of the north of England continued.

This is all very weird. I've read the speech on the DCLG website, and none of this stuff about Liverpool being Rotterdam is in the text. Did she ad lib? Or have regional press officers given a local gloss to her speech? I don't understand this. Where they told "just say whatever cities you've got can be something sexy sounding.......Mansfield can be our Miami, Liverpool can be our Rotterdam, who cares, it's bull****"


Liverpool will not become a Rotterdam. All the shipping operations can be condensed into the top 4 deep water docks. The rest of the dock waterways are ripe to make the city on the water. In other words Liverpool may become more of an Amsterdam rather than a Rotterdam.


Secondly, she says "We need our cities and towns to be both competitors and collaborators: to strive to excel individually in economic performance and quality of life but also to recognise shared opportunities, put aside aprochial concerns and maximise joint advantage". What a gorgeous collection of words that is. In other words, talk competition but don't compete.


I don’t see it that way. Liverpool and Manchester are very different cities. They really can’t compete in much at all, except for what amounts to government handouts. They can share infrastructure though, like merging the airport operations with Maglev train between the two and direct rail links from all terminals to all major centres in the North West,


There was nothing in her speech that demonstrated any real understanding of the nature of value of competition, because that is something that her Department totally fails to grasp and that London-based national civil servants are fearful of. The evidence to support her case here is missing, and the policy thinking, in as much as she articulates it, appears fluffy and flawed.


No matter what she says, the southern based public school Whitehall mandarins will block all power transfer out of the south east. This usually means power is centralised in London and the cities/regions run the waste collections.


Thirdly, but most seriously, there is a line in the "Conclusions" section that worries me greatly. This section I suppose allows her to go beyond what is evidenced, to what as a politician and Minister she believes. And what she believes is this: "I think we must aspire to having a number of cities that are genuine global leaders as well as being engines of growth in their region- a Barcelona of the North, a Milan of the Midlands and a Seattle of the West and powerful cities in other parts of the country." This seems to have been reported (or maybe she actually said in her speech what her officials won't actually publish in the official version) as meaning that Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol have especial roles and value over and above other core cities.


You assume Manchester over Liverpool. She is right that cities should be dynamic and independent of Whitehall. The reason why Britain for 50 years had awful shoddy cities was the over centralisation into the south east/London. Look at Western Germany with Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg. No gigantic big power and wealth sucking Londons over there.


DCLG seems to have gone out of its way to commission research that will lead it to support this odd view, and has drawn on largely Manchester based academics, who have tended to choose Manchester as a case study for the relevant research projects to inform policy, and have concluded that Manchester is qualitatively different and capable of far far more than other Northern cities. They (a team at Salford in particular, who seem very influential) argue that Government should big-up Manchester as a counter-weight to London, whatever "counterweight" actually means. In practice, it means the BBC relocating to Manchester and not still not having any tv presence in Liverpool, it means Manchester Airport being allowed to veto expansion at LJLA, and it means that Manchester as a city will be allowed to draw local taxes from people as far away as Warrington to pay for city-centre improvements, more trams, etc., without Liverpool city council getting a penny from them to pay for city centre services.


Manchester itself is only the 9th largest in the UK. They actually believe their own propaganda about the place.

Liverpool has to get its own act together and get rid of the well deserved do nothing city image. The rejection of the Brunswick Quays tower was indicative of the go nowhere attitude of the place. The no firm plan for the dock waterways is another. If people see high class developments and a transformation into the city on water, then focus will shift to Liverpool, as Liverpool is a more attractive city and has massive potential if realised. That can be realised very quickly. No other city in Europe has such potential for improvement. Liverpool has to move away from the working class image it has acquired and move upmarket. It can only do that by deeds. It has to be seen to be believed.


It was a bad speech for Liverpool, and indicates that Government wishes to see a relatively smaller, weaker and poorer Liverpool if that is the price to be paid for a highly experimental goal of creating a few "global" cities - Manchester, Birmingham, and perhaps also Bristol or Leeds.


If it is clear Manchester is being beefed up then Liverpool should shout from the high heavens. That is what Manchester did. To their credit, they shouted up Manchester, well above what it actually was. Shout loud enough and they will believe you.