‘It has been a real honour’ Mike can be proud of legacy in county
WHEN he retires shortly after 49 years in local government, Mike Dawson, chief executive of Tewkesbury District Council, can be proud of his legacy.
Not something generally appreciated is that Tewkesbury’s economy is one of the fastest growing in the country.
It is becoming a powerhouse in its own right, with a huge growth in businesses plus the development of a new Garden Town over the next 30 years.
Mike is a Lancastrian by birth and has been one of the key drivers in sustaining Gloucestershire’s economic growth. A pragmatic man, he is not afraid to make his strong views known.
“It has been a real honour to be chief executive at Tewkesbury”, he says, as he prepares to leave the job in June after 12 years at the helm.
He said he views his legacy as having helped the council lift its ambitions both in terms of its own performance and the growth and success of Tewkesbury borough. It is now one of the fastest growing areas in the country – in 2019, it was the fastest growing local authority area outside London.
“When I first started 12 years ago, the population of Tewkesbury was 85,000 and it’s now 99,600 – that’s a massive 15,000 increase in the population of the borough,” he said. “You either go forward or backwards.”
He said he thought growth was a measure of success for an area.
“Putting money into people’s pockets, making them feel wealthy and in a good place all depends on a growing economy,” he said. “That doesn’t work without growing other things as well.
“In a growing economy, you probably need to have a growing population. You need houses for them, you need roads and infrastructure for those houses and the businesses that you’re looking to attract. It comes as a package.
“A lot of people don’t like to think of growth in that sense, because they quite often focus on why they don’t want all those houses. But they are an important part for our young people to give them places to live in the future. The trick is getting the growth right and getting really good quality develop- ments.”
Attracting the right jobs for that growing population was also a key factor, he said.
“We have a long history of really advanced technical manufacturing,” he added. “We have a workforce that goes back generations in terms of an excellent engineering.
“Some of our businesses are absolutely world class – companies like Messier Dowty and Moog.”
Asked about the progress on the Tewkesbury Garden Town project, he said: “It’s an absolutely massive project. We are still at concept stage and there’s still a lot of work to do in terms of the detailed planning, but it’s a 30-year project. We got the Tewkesbury Garden Town status in 2018 and we’ve been working on it since then.
“We are looking to put in the bridge over the railway to facilitate the development of what will be effectively phase one of the Garden Town, and so work is continuing to deliver now we have successfully received £8.1 million in funding from the Government for that bridge.
“We are pushing to get the best possible alignment of the new road (the A46) and for it to join the M5 lower down, but there’s a lot of discussion over that with Highways England and Government.
“A scheme like that is going to be upwards of £400 million with the road scheme. The idea is to link up the A46 right through the Midlands to Immingham Docks.”
» Ian Mean is vice-chair of GFIRSTLEP