South East Wales

The event was held on the 6th January 2004 at Glamorgan University Conference Centre in Pontypridd. Eighty four participants attended, representing a wide range national and local organisations and groups.
This was the largest consultation event and, by virtue of the numbers and wide scope of interests, the most challenging to enable as regards both the discussion time and feedback of inputs around the content of the Plan.
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How we ran the workshops

The wide and varied area covered, as well as the range of interests at the event, meant that the opening presentation explaining the plan produced a diverse set of questions and observations. Among the themes that emerged were:
• The need for a polycentric approach, while acknowledging Cardiff’s central role
• Finer grain representation needed for differences within the area, and clearer rationale for the zoning used
• Explanations are needed of how the spatial plan integrates with other plans, and how it will be implemented
• More attention should be paid to environmental interests – particularly those of the voluntary sector.
Discussion, in groups, about the zone attributes set out in the plan enabled people to explore these and other issues in more detail, particularly the differences between the coastal area and the valleys. Some people argued for representing differences as two zones, and others that current zoning reflected social but not environmental realities.
The environment, said one group, should be presented more strongly as a valuable asset and not just a constraint on development. As well as high quality natural environment, there is also historical environment worthy of note.
Social issues of cultural and ethnic diversity, and anti-social behaviour emerged, together with the need to prioritise development of skills and life-long education. Strategically, groups explored the relationships and linkages both within the area and to, for example, Bristol.
Groups were offered a sustainability matrix that asked them to rate how the area performed according to various criteria. The broad consensus was:
• Environment – stable
• Community – fragile
• Prosperity – fragile
• Accessibility – fragile
However, many groups found it difficult to apply judgements to the area as a whole, and emphasised the need to acknowledge local variations.
The next stage of group discussion was to review the proposals in the plan as summarised on a set of cards. The task for the groups was both to prioritise the cards and proposed actions, and place them on a timescale. The table on page 5 collates the group decisions. Groups also added their own ideas, and the discussion produced a wide range of observations on details of the draft Plan.
After the card planning exercise, groups considered how far the programmes they had developed would bring changes, and broadly concluded the results would be:
• Environment – remained at stable
• Community – raised from fragile to stable
• Prosperity – raised from fragile to stable
• Accessibility – left as fragile
Over lunch, the morning discussions and planning sessions were reviewed by the event facilitators, and key priorities identified for further discussion in the afternoon.
These themes ranged from developing infrastructure for a competitive, sustainable economy and narrowing the prosperity gap between valley and coast, to fostering collaboration and integrating external stakeholders.
Groups then took these themes and developed action proposals in considerable detail, identifying actors to take them forward, and potential blockages. Given the wide range of proposals and interested parties a recurrent theme was the need for coordination and collaborative working.

Comments

[Jon Waters]

Interesting that there was some scepticism about the status of Cardiff as a 'national' centre. Despite all the hype, Cardiff (and Newport) are actually relatively weak - especially in comparison to the larger, adjacent "Greater Bristol" area. Plymouth Business School did some work on the Severnside economy in 2000 and noted that "Bristol has done much better than Cardiff in attraction of key industries such as business services and has much lower unemployment, higher earnings and higher GDP per head." In areas like finance, Cardiff and Newport have attracted call centre functions, while Bristol has secured the head offices and the quality jobs. In many ways the Severnside 'division of labour' in services mirrors the problems in manufacturing, where Wales has traditionally got the routine, low skilled branch plants. Don't kid yourself that the presence of the Assembly, the recent success of Cardiff as an 'events city' and exciting new developments are going to fundamentally alter this pattern. As I speak 'Regeneration' magazine is heralding SWRDA's start on England's largest science park at Emerson's Green in North Bristol, and 'Property Week' notes that as a result of the Lyons review of Civil Service location, the whole 6,000-job Defence Logistics Organisation will co-locate with the other MOD functions at Filton Abbey Wood.

Turning to the Valleys, I was very impressed by Elystan Glodrydd's analysis at the IWA's forum (http://www.iwa.org.uk/forum/read.php?f=2&i=2&t=1#reply_2) in which it is argued that if they are to develop at all, housing needs to be improved to provide the kind of facilities that would attract professionals and entrepreneurs. Middle class housing generates businesses and perhaps places like Merthyr should attempt to 'capture' Cardiff commuters and professionals working locally in health, education and public administration. I've seen this kind of argument used by Brian Morgan of Cardiff Business School and also by the RTPI (in the context of the regeneration of the Swansea waterfront).

Another area where people tend to think 'supply generates demand' - but in this case erroneously - is skills, a notable priority for the SE Wales workshop. It is true that Wales lacks human capital when compared to most regions of England, but the problem is one of cause and effect. Quite possibly knowledge businesses won't invest in a region with low skills, but those regions that have been successful in developing such businesses will also attract more skilled people. If you just increase the supply of skills without increasing the demand for them, you simply either generate out-migration (for example, Wales loses 20-30% of its graduates already) or end up with people having skills that aren't used (there's evidence for this in the latest Future Skills Wales survey). Most Welsh businesses and indeed 90% of UK businesses are operating in domestic markets where the income structure means that people often choose goods and services on the basis of price rather than quality (think Asda, Direct Line, EasyJet, and a whole host of local firms). Unfortunately this results in low cost, low skill business strategies - the dreaded 'Low Skils Equilibrium", called the LSQ for short. When it comes to education and skills, demand is as much of a problem as supply, but policymakers have always been reluctant to acknowledge this. If you want to read more on this issue have a look at the website of the Centre for Knowledge, Skills and Economic Performance, co-located at Warwick and Oxford universities.