The UK Innovation Corridor has asked Parliament to recognise the London to Cambridge to Peterborough axis as a growth geography in its own right, with a Corridor seat in Arc and Growth Corridor governance.
Jackie Sadek, Chair of the UK Innovation Corridor, made the case at the annual general meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the East of England, held in Committee Room 6 of the House of Commons on Monday 26 October. She spoke alongside Paul Bristow, Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Roz Bird, Chief Executive of Norwich Research Park, Chris Barton, Director at the Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, and Dr Andy Williams, Chair, Oxford to Cambridge Supercluster Board.
The Corridor runs from Peterborough through Cambridge, Stevenage and Harlow to Enfield and London’s Royal Docks, with Stansted Airport as its global gateway. It generates £284 billion of GVA a year, which is 16% of England’s output. A quarter of England’s net new knowledge-intensive jobs since 2016 were created here. The partnership is targeting £350 billion by 2040. Sadek told MPs and peers that the Corridor is a partner to the Arc, not a rival, and that its growth runs on more than one engine. Companies at Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst raised around £1 billion in the past year. In Harlow, the UK Health Security Agency’s national campus moved into procurement this summer. GSK is investing £400 million in a new research centre at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, and the links between Cambridge and Stevenage remain strong.
The Corridor’s partnerships already reach well beyond the region. The UKIC Universities Group agritech programme with São Paulo State and Embrapa, Brazil’s agricultural research corporation, is moving from concept to delivery. Anglia Ruskin University, UCL, Middlesex University and the University of East London are all involved. Sadek also argued that water, energy, and West Anglia rail capacity must be planned for the whole axis, not only for Cambridge. That holds whatever the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation and local government reorganisation produce.
The meeting was Sadek’s last engagement as Chair of the corridor, after three years in which she has helped to drive the organisation forward.
