What does the City Deal mean to Nottingham?
by Phil Woolley and Nathan Good Thu 12th July 2012, 10:09 am
The Nottingham City Deal – titled 'Connected, Creative, Competitive' – sets out a bold agenda for change, designed to create the conditions necessary for long term sustainable growth.
The city deal will enable a package of investment funds to enable businesses in the Creative Quarter – Nottingham growth plan’s flagship project – to grow, supplemented by business support structures and connections into bespoke apprenticeships.
The area will be served by superfast broadband, low-carbon energy supply and improved transport links.
The city deal includes the following package of measures
- Enterprise funding: providing financial incentives, physical assets and business support structures to enable emerging sectors to develop. These include a venture capital fund to help early stage growth businesses, a generation Y fund to help young people start in business, and a technology grant fund to support the exploitation of intellectual property.
- Skills development: simplifying the process of connecting people to jobs by developing strong relationships with education and training providers to align provision and economic need in the creative quarter.
- Transport: a programme of transport infrastructure and public realm improvements to fully connect the creative quarter, part-financed by tax increment financing. This will sit alongside possible national transport upgrades (such as MML electrification or the second phase of HS2) and more immediate investments in innovative network and demand management to minimise congestion and enable growth.
- Digital connectivity: developing infrastructure for superfast broadband within the creative quarter and beyond.
- Energy efficiency: working on the green deal, including extending the city district heating system to enable businesses to benefit from a lower Nottingham energy tarriff.
The Nottingham city deal integrates its economic, environmental and social objectives with a range of funding models to support development in a number of priority areas. At the same time, there is a strong futuristic and private-sector theme that builds on its core strengths as city with a high quality of life, excellent transport infrastructure, high skills base and accessible location.
The city deal provides Nottingham with the opportunity to address tomorrow's, as well as today's, challenges across its growth sectors.
Nathan Goode is head of energy, environment and sustainability at Grant Thornton UK and author of Grant Thornton's Sustainable Cities report.
Phil Woolley is a Partner in Grant Thornton UK's government infrastructure and advisory team.
Read more:
What does the city deal mean to Greater Birmingham?
What does the city deal mean to Sheffield?
What does the city deal mean to Newcastle?
What does the city deal mean to Liverpool?
What does the city deal mean to Leeds?
What does the City deal mean to Bristol?
