"If I was honest, while Canary Wharf has been hugely successful in many ways there have always been debates about how inclusive it has been and we will want to do better on that, certainly." Margot James, Executive Chair, WMG at the University of Warwick, said: " I think it is an improvement on what was announced in September, a much more sustainable policy". Any growth that happens needs to be inclusive", he added. He said: "Canary Wharf and Liverpool Docks were in a far worse place than most places in the West Midlands, they were utterly derelict" and the comparison was an "absolutely correct and a clever way" to sell the plan. The LDRS asked the mayor what he thought about the comparison with Canary Wharf which sits in the borough of Tower Hamlets and has the highest rate of child poverty in the UK. There's some serious problems here and really, it's just driven by a low tax agenda."Īndy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands and WMCA chair, said the investment zones were "very welcome news". "Will people just chase the planning reforms and therefore abandon other places, so you're just moving deck chairs around the Titanic?" He said. Finally, he wanted to know if the companies which invest will be running low carbon businesses as part of a modern, green approach or not. Secondly, like Professor Bailey, he speculated as to whether tax relief and planning relaxation rules will just pull investment away from other areas. If Arden Cross gets further support it will be a massive traffic generator in the green belt, hiding under the cover of the so called 'interchange station' which is really a huge car park." He said: "HS2 is already trashing" the Meriden Gap, a mostly rural area between Solihull and Coventry where the Arden Cross Interchange Station is under construction. Firstly, that the zone would infringe further on precious green belt land. On the Canary Wharf reference, he said: "The comparison isn't very good anyway, Canary Wharf isn't a university innovation investment zone." He added: Canary Wharf "was about developing parts of London and attracting the City to go there", creating a "concentration of financial services which didn't necessarily benefit the neighbourhood right next to it."Ĭhris Crean, spokesperson for environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth West Midlands, outlined three areas of concern. Having it close to a university might be a better way to go, nevertheless I remain sceptical as to whether there could be long term benefits from it." "Where they can work is when you have a much more kind of holistic approach to putting that alongside infrastructure locally, skills, innovation support. Professor of Business Economics at the University of Birmingham, David Bailey, said: "The evidence suggests that it tends to shift activity from one place to another. READ MORE: Dudley metro and vital transport works facing financial pressuresĪ local economist told the LDRS he is "not a fan" of investment zones in general, but stressed there is not much detail to go on yet. Mr Hunt explained: "To be chosen, each area must identify a location where they can offer a full and imaginative partnership between local governments and the university or research institutes in a way that catalyses new innovation clusters." Now running for five years, rather than Kwarteng's proposed ten, the zones will provide a range of incentives like tax breaks, business rates retention, and investment in infrastructure and skills. Eight zones will be in England, focused around universities and within combined authority regions, with four zones across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The low tax plans, first introduced by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng in their, now infamous, Autumn 'mini-budget', have been "scaled back" by Mr Hunt. Jeremy Hunt confirmed twelve UK investment zones near universities will get £80 million each, over five years, if their applications are successful. The West Midlands could get its own Canary Wharf, the chancellor announced today in plans designed to "super charge growth" in the region.
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