Keep an eye out for work of project

THE official launch of the Great Western Powerhouse was held on July 8. It was interesting that the launch took place in London which highlights that one of the main aims is to raise the profile of the area within national government and hopefully increase investment and devolution of powers.

You may have heard of the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ and ‘Midlands Engine’ which were set up to highlight and lobby on behalf of particular parts of England and seem to have been successful within government at least.

While devolution should be equally available everyway that doesn’t seem to be the way the government works and there was concern that without something similar we could lose out.

The difficult issue is what area is it best to work with since Gloucestershire would be too small.

The proposed Great Western Powerhouse covers an area from Swansea to Swindon and includes the key cities of Cardiff and Bristol as well as Gloucestershire and covers 4.4million people.

While the initial research was done by Cardiff, Bristol and Newport more recently Swansea, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire have been added to the suggested area.

Hopefully this isn’t just an afterthought but does reflect the economic significance that Cheltenham and Gloucester can bring.

While the previous ‘powerhouses’ mentioned cover parts of England clearly this one includes areas in both England and Wales, which certainly complicates things when it comes to government structures.

An alternative could be something for the South West of England.

But this is a very large area and there is a concern about how many common issues there would actually be.

So while the Great Western Powerhouse has been launched it is still early days as there has not yet been a meeting between all the councils in the area covered. But it is certainly worth further discussion and we will see what happens next.