‘The Cardiff Capital run by a committee
A Passenger Transport Executive needs to be at the heart of the city region, according to secretary of the Cardiff Civic Society David Eggleton
The City Deal approved by the 10 councils of south-east Wales on St David’s Day gives the Cardiff Capital Region the opportunity and means to become a reality.
But the agreement, and the £1.2bn identified, is only the start. The challenge is now to leverage investment into the region by translating intent into meaningful and beneficial infrastructure.
The city region concept had been given its initial credibility by the City Growth Commission run by Jim (now Lord) O’Neill, which identified accountability and effective collaboration between its constituent parts, supported by clear vision and leadership, as the keys to delivering the economic growth potential.
It highlighted the need for an effective transport network between and within regions, managed by a Passenger Transport Executive (PTE) responsible for specifying and providing an effective transport network.
The Welsh Government formed a task and finish group, chaired by Dr Elizabeth Haywood, to guide the way forward, and in July 2012 its final report was issued and accepted by minister Edwina Hart.
It stated that: “If Wales does not develop policies to harness the economic benefits to be had from the critical mass effect of a city region, our poor [economic] performance is likely to continue.”
Simply identifying a city region was never going to resolve the issues.It needs skills, housing, jobs and transportation to improve, managed by a governance system able to drive change and accountable to the population and to the country.
South-east Wales is not one centre of population with a surrounding network of small towns and villages, but a polycentric region with Cardiff as its main centre and a poorly connected set of towns that were primarily responsible for Cardiff’s growth in the first place. Cardiff owes these towns much that could be delivered by a city region.
City regions only succeed when the vision is shared (at least we have a joint commitment to that) but to avoid the “tribalism and parochialism” referred to in the Welsh Government report, we need more than a high-level statement of agreement.
The plans for local authorities to reform by grouping together have collapsed, replaced by a plan for existing local authorities to co-ordinate and collaborate. This may be sufficient to improve local services by sharing waste collection and administrative tasks, but not to run a regional economy under threat from other UK regions and operating in tricky financial conditions.
This requires a city region authority, not a committee, and is why Roger Lewis agreed at the IWA Economic Conference in March, 2014, that a PTE for the newly created region would be his main priority and that “we are a board in a hurry”.
Nothing was achieved except to name it as the Cardiff Capital City Region (now referred to as the Cardiff Capital Region).
The regional transport network is the missing link, the most important single development identified by all those asked to contribute to the city region objectives.
A regional PTE may once have been the priority, but it has been sidelined in all subsequent plans, including and especially the Cardiff LDP, which concentrated only on land use within the city boundaries.
A PTE to design, develop and then run the network is the only way forward, following the example of all successful city regions – empowered to implement and deliver a functioning network.
Instead we have a national body, Transport for Wales, given responsibility for the Metro as part of its allWales responsibility to design, develop and run the total network of road, heavy rail, air and Metro-type systems. The refranchising of the Wales and Borders franchise will dominate the work for years and will not give adequate attention to our Metro.
The challenges for the City Region can therefore be summarised as:
Getting unanimity of vision and of how the benefits are delivered. Not all corners of the region can benefit from day one and parochialism will rule without a unified regional authority.
Finance, since the £1.2bn is only a start. This will require a strong and unified vision for the region with a long-term determination to deliver the means for success. Supply chains are credited with a four-times multiplier for jobs where growth industries can be established.
Bringing growth and productivity to a poor-performing region. A skills deficit and a poor transport network will undermine the ambitious officebuilding programme in Cardiff.
Providing a world-class transport network needs a PTE body responsible to the region. Burying the Metro delivery inside a national Transport for Wales (TfW) body that will be totally consumed by the task of respecifying the network, franchise selection, service respecification, delivery and management is a mistake. It will not get around to delivering the Metro, and the growth promised by the LDP will fail because of congestion and pollution.
Delivering and prioritising the inclusion of Valley communities into the Cardiff growth. The deprivation reported is shameful and we need to give them connectivity and access to skills and jobs. A regional strategy and perspective is still a dream, but connectivity is king.
Expanding on each of these challenges would be to repeat much of what the Haywood team concluded in their final report in 2012. What is needed is: A single south-east Wales executive authority to drive economies of scale and provide a blueprint for the whole-region economy. Development must be made where opportunity is greatest, not to please everyone. The abandonment of the local authority merger plan is a mistake. It is not enough to co-ordinate – as the Haywood report says, tribalism will strangle this quickly if allowed to. A good example is the specification of an inadequate new bus station in Cardiff, half the size needed to support the region because the Cardiff LDP does not look beyond the city boundaries.
A PTE, as promised by the first city region chairman Roger Lewis. This must be separate from the TfW national body and deliver a fast solution to the regional transport needs – a tram/light rail system (like most other UK city regions) dedicated to supporting the travel-to-work area between the Heads of the Valleys in the north and the coast and from Newport and Monmouth in the east to the airport in the west. Even the new development sites around Cardiff will not have an means of getting people to work effectively, and houses are being designed with car commuting in mind.
Leveraging and developing the skills and business competences in the region to attract new business and build supply chains in the region.
A world-class digital economy with a focus on access to information on the go and capacity and security of