CITY REGIONS IN SCOTLAND
Posted by Eric Joyce, MP for Falkirk, at 13:00, Thu 23 November 2006:
I've been looking closely at how city regions in England work and how this might have implications for those in Scotland. Falkirk is a 25 mins train ride from both Edinburgh and Glasgow and in the morning Falkirk High station is full of people travelling to one of the two cities to work. From Falkirk High, 'Glasburgh', if I can call it that, looks like one big city region, rather than two. It's important to get the right approach as Falkirk could benefit from considerable inward investment through attracting larger operations into either Glasgow or Edinburgh. I'd be interested to know how people feel about that.
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Posted by Iain Henderson, 13:13, Thu 23 November 2006: (Is this post abusive?) #
My own personal view is that this approach would be more long-winded/ less likely to lead to direct success than aiming for direct investment into Falkirk.
I suspect there are already people looking at inward investment to West Edinburgh/ East Glasgow - both of which, as you say, would benefit Falkirk/ Larbert. I think a focus on landing one big move to Falkirk area (e.g. by a government department or so) would be a more direct/ accountable approach.
Posted by Chris Renton, 13:20, Thu 23 November 2006: (Is this post abusive?) #
Surely with the development money being spent on 'My Future's in Falkirk' it would be better to try and attract investment directly to Falkirk, than to piggy back off "Glasburgh"? The former Alcan site, the Falkirk Gateway, the Helix etc are only going to proivde returns if they are fully utilised.
Posted by Creag Browning, 16:50, Thu 23 November 2006: (Is this post abusive?) #
Does the 'My Future's in Falkirk' initiative not already cover this?
Posted by Neil Ferguson, 16:50, Fri 24 November 2006: (Is this post abusive?) #
I agree with the comments above, in that focusing on direct investment into Falkirk is more likely to bring immediate benefits to people in the area.
In addition, a city-region strategy only works for as long as the transport network can support it, to say nothing of the environmental effect of moving all those people around. I can tell you from personal experience that commuting in and around London is a complete circus.
Areas which do successfully implement a city-region strategy - Munich is a good example, in my opinion - have more transport types available that Falkirk does. We only have cars and "heavy railway"; no trams, no light railway, no Tube system, and the buses are simply too slow. The thing I notice about the transport methods we don't have in Falkirk is that they aren't practical for a 25 mile trip, because they're stopping services (as opposed to express ones) and that slows them down too much. The Munich city-region only has a radius of 10 miles or so.
Better for us to try and encourage companies to spread out a bit. Falkirk's transport links north, east and west should be a good selling point in that regard - companies have plenty of potential employees in the area, yet can easily ship goods and supplies if their business requires it.