The Importance of The Great Western Powerhouse and The Severn Vale Board of Gloucestershire 2050
When leadership Gloucestershire devised the concept of the Gloucestershire 2050 vision, it was done with the very best of intentions. To have a joined up forward plan for the county is right and it is a way to enable authorities to join with a unified aim and ambition.
It is however I think fair to say that for the Forest of Dean and perhaps some other districts the 2050 document as presented in its original format is somewhat light on ambition for our district. Its focus seems to be the cyber centre and the area of City growth and that fine. It is a wonderful opportunity for Gloucestershire and will bring benefits and opportunities to people in the Forest of Dean and the County and I and the Forest of Dean wholeheartedly support it.
The ambition for the Forest of Dean appeared to be the designation of Regional Park status. a status that no one really seemed to understand let alone desire. This proud district and this council have made its position very clear on such a subject many times.
The Forest of Dean should have national designation along the lines of AONB or whatever replaces it ,(ref the welcome Glover report ) and work is going into researching the economic opportunities and the cultural and landscape protective qualities a Biosphere reserve designation might offer us here in the Forest.
So, in many ways, that work is already being done here locally. From Gloucestershire 2050 vision and working with our Local authority partners and Gfirst Lep we really require something a little more tangible, something to offer projects that locally we can look to achieve. Although we value all our visitors to the area, we do not wish to become simply a place to visit, to pass through or indeed to live in. We want to be an active working vibrant district that also happens to be one of the country’s most beautiful and cultural areas.
To develop such projects within the confines of Gloucestershire itself was always going to be difficult and we find that many important issues and opportunities facing the Forest of Dean simply continue to remain issues and opportunities. Gfirst Lep have limited funding, Gloucestershire itself can attract limited funding and quite often, ambitions that we may have and infrastructure challenges facing us as a relatively small district ,simply do not receive enough support because the return is not seen as big enough to the county or even the country as a whole.
However, the possible Genesis of a Powerhouse for the West, has completely changed the outlook and the horizon. Now we can look at joint projects with neighbouring authorities outside of Gloucestershire in the knowledge that potentially the funding pot for such a powerhouse is simply huge in comparison to the one we had been trying be rewarded from previously.
With a wider scope of partners we can consider talking to rail networks about what a real and genuine railway through the Forest of Dean can offer business and therefore them .Imagine being able to catch a train or ride a cycle to Stroud, think of the openings that direct journey alone might offer the Forests business . We can work with our friends in Monmouthshire Councils and the Welsh Assembly and genuinely get something done about the horrendous traffic issues in Chepstow and perhaps even Monmouth.
The opportunities for partnership working with these and other partners is staggering and of the like we may not see again. A genuine and tangible alternative for the all too quickly summoned Unitary status that swallows local pride, culture, heritage and individualism in the name of finance and generic viability.
A devolution for the people perhaps? We are not all the same, our localism is vital.
We have and can get more of those partners involved in this Severn Vale board because of the opportunity it brings the region as a whole
The proposition of a Western Powerhouse has I believe given this proposed Severn Vale board real impetus and real opportunity, and given the Gloucestershire 2050 vision project a timely and well aimed nudge in the right direction from the Forest of Deans point of view
The board, being a conduit into such a Powerhouse can I also believe, set the mark for real and long needed change in local government. We are told be a more commercial, a more business orientated organisation. We have embraced that mantra in many ways here in the Forest of Dean Council as have many other Councils. But when a business has an opportunity or is faced with a problem, it deals with it, its sorts the issue out. In local government we tend to be stuck to ways of working, of tradition that mean that that years of consultation, of pipelines, of planning, of hearings are the norm.
People travelling to Chepstow and the Severn bridge, are all too aware that there are serious issues, they know they have them today and they will have them tomorrow. They don’t need 5 more years of consultative study to prove that there’s a problem. I’m hopeful that the creation of this board and the input it may have into a Powerhouse for the region will mean, that when everyone can see there’s an issue, we can find an expert, get the money and put the issue right. Yes, due diligence, yes consultation, but it need not and should not take decades.
The Forest of Dean embraces the proposed board and its terms of reference, it also recognises the opportunities the board and a Powerhouse for the West may bring to our district and to our County where the days of inward-looking Gloucestershire simple must end
Katherine Bennett, Senior Vice President of Airbus, has been announced as the first acting chair of the Western Gateway, who will lead and shape the governance, management and initial priorities for the partnership.
I can tell you that i have spoken with her and can confirm , she is an extremely impressive individual. She seems to understand the Forest and is keen to know more. we can work well together.
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