Based on growth rates of the past 20 years the Corridor can double the size of its economy by 2050. The challenge is to do this sustainably, without overheating Cambridge and Kings Cross and to ensure that the economy works for all.
Building on the recommendations of Sir Harvey McGrath’s Growth Commission of 2016, members of the Innovation Corridor have been working over the last year with consultants, Blue Marble Partnership and Professor Ying Yin from Cambridge University to determine ways in which the growth potential of the UK Innovation Corridor can be taken forward in the changed global and UK policy environment of 2022 and beyond.
The work has been steered by a small high-level all-party group of all local authority leaders representing the Mayors of London and Cambridge & Peterborough, the Leaders of Essex and Hertfordshire County Councils, and the Chair of London Councils. Their shared ambition is, that by working together, the Corridor can double its current size of the economy to £350 billion by 2050.
An analysis of trends of the past 20 years indicates that this is achievable and could even be reached earlier but to do this in a sustainable and collaborative way we must ensure that growth is distributed more evenly along the Corridor to avoid overheating the hotspots in Cambridge and Central London. Key to this will be continuing to improve productivity and to ensure that people who live in the Corridor (or close by) have the skills and access to jobs so that they can share in the success of one of the world’s leading knowledge economies.
The work so far has identified five strategic anchor locations: Euston/Kings Cross, Lee Valley, Greater Harlow, Stevenage, and Greater Cambridge and four strategic programmes designed to:
As a partnership between local government, business, universities, and colleges working together we believe there is sufficient collective ambition for the UK Innovation Corridor for us to make a genuine offer to government: to publicly recognise the importance of this Corridor as part of the national ambition to be a global science superpower and to act as ‘cornerstone investor’ that will demonstrate support and provide seed-corn funding to initiate our programmes.
On January 18th over 60 stakeholders from local and central government, business, colleges and universities came together to discuss how they can work together, with modest support from government, to build this world-class dynamic economy and to make sure that it works for all.
UKIC_Strategic_Place-Shaping_data.pdf
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