Back to his roots

Vince Taylor is heading back to where it all began. Thirty years ago as a schoolboy at St Cuthbert’s Grammar School in Newcastle, he would look out the window and see the imposing form of the Stella Power Station belching out smoke.

The power station is gone now, along with shipyards and coalfields across the North, but in its place stands the building from which Taylor will coordinate efforts to rejuvenate the region as director of implementation for the Northern Way. “The view’s changed a bit,” he says, smiling wryly.

Change is certainly what is being called for now. Taylor takes up his new position on 25 April – the same date as the regeneration programme publishes its first three-year business plan.

He’s already started taking up his duties – a wise move, perhaps since the job he is taking on is massive. The Northern Way’s aim is simple but ambitious: bridge the £29bn productivity gap between the North and the South by 2025. If the productivity and employment of the three Northern regions matched the current UK average, the UK would be £29bn a year better off.

The remit covers a huge number of agencies – Taylor will be working with the northern regional development agencies, regional assemblies, local authorities, pathfinders, housing associations, developers, environment agencies and highways agencies, among others.

Ambitious, perhaps, but Taylor’s track record suggests that he is up to it. He moved into regeneration after six years as a City economist taught him that “crunching numbers wasn’t terribly fulfilling”. Roles as a policy analyst for Haringey council and executive director of the West London Training and Enterprise Council followed before the move up to Sheffield. There, in his seven years as director of the Sheffield First Partnership, a massive regeneration programme has resulted in a slew of offices, housing and new public spaces a stone’s throw from the town hall – including the Winter Garden, where he is pictured. And the change is more than cosmetic. Sheffield is the second-fastest-growing city in the UK, behind Leeds, creating 5000 new jobs a year and with unemployment rates just 0.2% above the national average, down from 2.5% in the late 1990s.

And if Sheffield is looking brighter, it’s nothing on Taylor’s current office, where the interview is conducted – the walls, in line with the logo, are a glaring, Kilroy-Silk orange.

“One of the interesting things is that what I have learned in Sheffield First counts for the Northern Way as well – only it counts in shovel-loads,” he admits. “The Northern Way is an enormous partnership. It’s part campaign, part movement, underpinned by a huge collaboration across a number of organisations.”

Big it may be, but Taylor is convinced the partnership can work. The day before we meet he attended a formal discussion at the Northern Way business conference with the top 100 businesses in the North. The subjects that came up provide a tantalising glimpse of possible new directions.

“One of the things that was suggested was that we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to the South but to other European regions,” he says, adding that many present felt the region could have more in common with other regions in Europe than the south of England.

“We would look for similarities in those cities we would aspire to be like. One of the questions was ‘just how did Barcelona do it?’. It is then important to make sure you’re finding out what’s transferable to the North.”

He also believes action needs to be taken now to survey the likely impact not only of the Northern Way, which will mean a population increase if it is successful, but of other demographic changes.

‘What I learned in Sheffield First counts for the Northern Way – only in shovel-loads’

Planning ahead and understanding how an ageing population, or increased numbers of single households, is likely to affect demand for housing is vital to prevent the region reliving some of its current problems in years to come.

“We could be on the brink of a housing revolution over the next 20 years,” he says.

“I want to open up discussions with the housing associations and housing developers about what their thinking is on this and how we must approach it to make sure that the Northern Way isn’t held back by housing stock that is continually being outmoded.

I think we will struggle unless we get a clearer picture as to what these requirements are and how they can be met better.”

The job in hand, however, is gearing up for the publication of the business plan. It currently includes 10 main headings under which the strategy is looking to take action, including providing more employment, preparing a Northern airports priorities plan and creating truly sustainable communities.

There will be targets set for each area in each of the three years of the plan but the focus will be on areas where it is felt real progress can be made and getting that in the right order, Taylor says. “There were 60 individual areas for action in the action plan we put forward and we are now concentrating on the ones we can move ahead the fastest. Those will go into year one of the delivery plan. We are not saying we will get even progress on all 60 in the first year.”

Four of the key elements of the plan’s first year are likely to see the Northern Way centre on projects to improve innovation, skills, individual city region development programmes, and unemployment pilot schemes.

Examples will include work with the Learning and Skills Council to increase the numbers taking NVQ3 to help bridge the skills gap – and a corresponding pledge to employers about the standards they can expect from Northern job applicants. Plans will also progress for a design centre in the North-east, announced in the Budget, which will complete the set of three centres of excellence across the North.

Taylor is going to be a busy man but says he is looking forward to the challenge. “The things we get involved in must be of a particular quality that says something about the North,” he adds.

“We are challenging perceptions by being different. We won’t do it by a marketing campaign. There is plenty to be getting on with.” He might be returning to his roots but there won’t be much time for staring out the window this time round.