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Cabinet of Core Cities calls for government support

The newly formed Cabinet of Core Cities has written to the Prime Minister to ask for the Government’s support.

The cabinet, which includes representatives from Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol and Sheffield, has invited Mr Cameron to meet with them.

Stemming from the Government’s City Deals, the cabinet aims to pursue further growth and reform through a collective strength.

Leaders from each of the cities call for “increased dialogue and commitment” from central government.

The letter read: “As the leaders of England’s biggest city economies outside London, we share Government’s ambition to grow the economy, and believe the Core Cities are critical to addressing the current imbalance.

“Our wider urban areas already deliver 27% of the country’s economic output and contain 16 million people.

“Even small gains in productivity in our cities will reap big national rewards. With independent forecasts showing the potential for us to deliver an additional £61 billion GVA and 1.3 million jobs above current expectations over the next two decades, in these tough economic times, it is vital that we better utilise the spare capacity of our Core Cities to boost national growth.”

The CBI showed their support for the cabinet, and Sarah Green, director of CBI North East, said business would welcome any approach to derive growth from the whole UK economy.

She said: “A return to strong, sustainable growth can only come from a rebalancing of the economy away from an over-reliance on London and the South East and it will be our major cities which will drive this.

“The government has shown its commitment to boosting regional growth through the expansion of City Deals and increasing the powers of Local Enterprise Partnerships in the Autumn Budget Statement, but the Cabinet of Core Cities is right to say that we need to go further to kick start growth.

“Our core cities – including Newcastle - need a strong, united voice to argue the case in Westminster. However, it is extremely important that the Cabinet of Core Cities works closely with existing bodies – in particular the Local Enterprise Partnerships - because businesses want to see a simplification of the existing regional governance arrangements, not something that further complicates the picture.

“Any new initiatives designed to stimulate economic growth in the regions should apply across Local Enterprise Partnership areas, which businesses now accept as the established economic development boundaries for the North East.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .