Kevin Rush, Director of Regional Economic Growth, provides an update on the latest progress
Director’s Blog – what’s been going on across Glasgow City Region
It’s only the first week of June – but already it’s been a busy month at Glasgow City Region.
Our Cabinet meeting took place on Tuesday.
The Cabinet is responsible for driving regional economic growth. It is attended by the Leaders of the eight Glasgow City Region councils, with meetings held every eight weeks.
At this month’s meeting, Cabinet considered further progress in our £1.13 billion City Deal, including Full Business Cases for Glasgow City Council’s Metropolitan Glasgow Strategic Drainage Partnership – the South East Glasgow Surface Water Management Plan project and Inverclyde Council’s Ocean Terminal Marine Works.
The Ocean Terminal project will deliver an extended quayside and a new visitor centre which will further expand Greenock as the cruise ship capital of Scotland. This project is a great example of our boosting City Deal government funding with private sector monies. In this case, Inverclyde Council is working with Peel Ports and two other businesses. Original plans for the visitor terminal have now been enhanced to include not only a new reception centre for passengers but in addition a 150 seater restaurant and a gallery, celebrating local artist George Wylie.
The project is anticipated to increase cruise ship passenger from 100,000 a year to 250,000 by 2025, all of which of course will help grow the City Region economy and support our Tourism Strategy ambition to bring 1,000,000 more visitors to the City Region.
Wednesday saw the formal launch of a new Regional Skills Investment Plan at South Lanarkshire College in East Kilbride. This was hosted by Councillor John Ross, the Leader of South Lanarkshire Council and Portfolio Lead for Skills and Employment.
The event was attended by representatives from the region’s twelve universities and colleges, with a keynote speech by Kate Forbes, the Scottish Government Minster for Public Finance and Digital Economy. The plan has been developed together with a number of partners including the eight local authorities, the business sector, universities and colleges and government.
The June edition of The Planner magazine has gone to press with an eight page feature on the Region and extensive online content. This was based around a two day journalist’s visit to the region, taking in a number of our City Deal projects such as Sighthill and the Smart Canal in Glasgow, Ravenscraig in North Lanarkshire and the Glasgow Airport Investment Area in Renfrewshire.
Content is set out over six full features providing a summary of the deal itself, our funding, some key projects and how the region is felt to be dealing with its industrial past and creating a platform for transformation. You can view the online content here.
The Smart Canal is certainly drawing a lot of interest and in fact, we’ve been invited to speak about the project this month at the Making the Most of London’s Waterways Conference in London.
There’s certainly a lot going on and if you are interested in keeping up to date on the latest news and progress – follow us on twitter and sign up to receive our newsletter. The next edition is due out soon.
