Councillor Phil Davies introduced a report which informed that the Wirral Plan: a 2020 Vision included a number of outcomes and actions relating to economic growth within the Borough.  This was based on the recognition that economic development was a critical activity to support Wirral’s residents to access jobs, housing and achieve a good quality of life.  To deliver the Wirral Plan the Council was taking an approach which would catalyse and encourage significant amounts of investment into the Borough, including creating appropriate delivery structures which could more easily work with and respond to the private sector.

In December 2016 the Council had agreed a report entitled ‘Delivering Wirral’s Growth’ which had outlined proposals for creating a property company to drive forward investment, regeneration and secure increased income for the Council, and officers had been instructed to present an options appraisal to the Cabinet at its meeting in February 2017. The report had also identified a number of actions which needed to be progressed in parallel to this work in order to capitalise on immediate opportunities for growth within the Borough and also to ensure the establishment of the proposed property company would be supported by a strong and coherent offer to investors.  Officers were authorised to progress a number of actions.

The report set out the work officers had undertaken to scope these activities further and to identify how best they could be delivered. The report also set out some key short term opportunities which were critical to raising Wirral’s profile and, therefore, maximising its ability to attract investment. This included ensuring Wirral’s growth opportunities were developed into propositions for the international property forum, MIPIM, which was taking place in March 2017. The MIPIM conference took place annually and was the key event attended by the world’s major development and investment companies looking for investment opportunities.

The Cabinet noted that Officers had reviewed the options outlined in the December 2016 report in respect of the approach that could be adopted to deliver these activities and, given the need to capitalise on these events, to deliver at pace and provide a more co-ordinated offer to investors, it was proposed that these actions could be most effectively and efficiently progressed through a combination of approaches including:

·  work carried out in-house – utilising input from officers within the Strategic Hub;

·  targeted and initially short term collaboration with key city region partners already active in this area of work. Liverpool Vision has expertise in both marketing and investment and their officers have worked across the city region on events such as the International Festival for Business. Liverpool Vision is currently organising the city region’s input to MIPIM 2017;

·  the creation of a short term post to drive investor development activity and to ensure that the investment market is fully alerted to the property company proposal.

The Cabinet also noted that this approach would enable work to be carried out in the short term to meet the timescales associated with MIPIM and the establishment of the Property Company, whilst allowing for a review to be undertaken after six months to establish whether there was a need for the activities to be continued, in the light of the setting up of a property company and future city region activities.

These actions would support the Wirral Plan pledges as set out in the Wirral Growth Plan, including:

·  Increase inward investment

·  Greater job opportunities in Wirral Council

·  Thriving Small businesses

Although this was not a key decision, in the light of the time critical nature of these activities, it was considered necessary to request that call-in be waived. This would enable the activities to progress at once and, therefore, ensure that work was completed in time to meet deadlines for key events such as MIPIM. Due to the absence of the Chief Executive, and on his behalf, the Assistant Chief Executive had recommended that call-in be waived.

RESOLVED:

(1)  officers be authorised to work with Liverpool Vision over the next six months to develop the strategic narrative to underpin the proposed Property Company and to deliver value propositions for the promotion of Wirral’s growth opportunities.  This approach will be reviewed in line with emerging Combined Authority arrangements;

(2)  officers be authorised to create and advertise a temporary post to drive forward investor development activity and to carry out a review to determine whether there was a business case for the continuation on the post; and

(3)  given the urgency to implement these proposals, in order to deliver the time critical activities, the call-in to be waived.