The Liverpool City Region is an area “that continues to look outwards, and forwards” according to the Chair of the Liverpool-China Partnership, Paul Grover.

Speaking at the North-West Development Conference Grover celebrated the fact the partnership has recently secured “£138m worth of deals” as part of delegations to mark 20 years since Liverpool was twinned with Shanghai. [emaillocker id=”71749″]

He remarked on the growth within Liverpool, particularly the “significant development going on around Paddington and the Knowledge Quarter.”

Connectivity was signalled as an area of growth for the region, and Grover explained the region’s favourable geography: “The distance between Manchester and Liverpool and overlay that with London it’s about the same, we will see investors and developers looking at the Northern Rail connection piece.”

Dan Cochlin, Head of External Affairs at the Northern Powerhouse Partnership described how “Northern Powerhouse Rail is just one component of the Northern Strategic Transport Plan” – a £70bn plan up to 2050. Cochlin also highlighted the need to “address the HS2 issue”, suggesting that Government indecision was having a negative effect on the region.

Significant progress has been made in responding to the climate emergency – according to Mark Dickens, Director of Spatial Development at the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. He said: “We were the first Combined Authority to declare a climate emergency and I’ve been contacted by several councils from around the country asking for advice because we’ve been doing great work around climate mitigation.”

Cochlin noted how energy firms in the region are changing: “Drax who used to be Europe’s biggest polluters have announced a plan to be carbon negative by 2030.”

Jo Lappin, Chief Executive of the Cumbria LEP, remarked that “off-shore wind is a sector that has grown exponentially.” Lappin suggested that the growth of the sector could be maximized using an “off-shore renewable energy catapult.”

Lappin also cautioned against wholesale rejection of nuclear, citing concerns surrounding baseload and the potential of “new, smaller, modular reactors.”

For Cumbria, Lappin described the “biggest opportunity for growth has been the commitment of BAE Systems to the shipbuilding.” She said that contrary to perceptions of the county “a quarter of our economic value comes from advanced manufacturing.”

The need to balance a regional approach with local concerns was highlighted by Mark Dickens who suggested that to achieve necessary funding “the Liverpool City Region on itself is too small” but also that “local decision makers and key figures know best about their region”.

The formation of the Liverpool City Region in 2014 and the achievement of the Borderlands Growth Deal for the rural North West has brought a new sense of direction in the region and it is an increasingly exciting place for the development world. [/emaillocker]