Co-ordination is key as North West moves forward – View from the Foyle

Co-ordination is key as North West moves forward - View from the Foyle

As we look to move forward towards delivery, co-ordination of actions across the various stakeholders will be key to ensuring the success of the various plans in place for the North West. The fund will complement the continued regeneration of the city centre already taking place through public realm works and City Deal projects, a great example of co-ordinated thinking and action. We look forward to seeing how the fund’s work will help to unlock our local economic potential and grow our economy, and we look forward to seeing how the regeneration of the city centre can act as a roadmap for how we co-ordinate both economic development and built environment planning across the whole region. This means understanding that university expansion on its own is not a silver bullet for the regional economy. The expansion of the university will of course provide an economic boon and further opportunity for the region, but we should all remain mindful that Ulster University is not an economic development agency. The Department for the Economy, Invest NI, the Council, the Chamber, and the Local Economic Partnerships must ensure that the opportunity opened by the university expansion is co-ordinated and delivered upon. We can build on existing substantial cross border assets including Seagate, Vertiv, UU, ATU, Catalyst and Foyle Port to name a few. By building on the potential of City Deal opportunities through the CARL and CIDRA projects and enabling infrastructure developments such as GreenScale’s Data Centre, powered by our abundance of renewable energy potential we can aim to leverage into the UK Governments AI Growth Zone policies. This would build a unique, ambitious and importantly, achievable proposition for Derry and for the region. Is this realistic? Examples like this week’s A5 decision are the exact opposite of what we need. We need decision-making that takes all sectors into account and improves connectivity in the North West, both literally and figuratively. But with a coordinated, consistent and collective effort, I believe we can do this.

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