Coventry and Warwickshire - a great business team

Coventry and Warwickshire have a great record of interaction and mutual support when it comes to supporting businesses and the local economy. That continuing harmony is crucial to the future prosperity of the region, says Corin Crane, Chief Executive of Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce 

Putting more powers into the hands of local people and local businesses is always something to be welcomed but, for any Government, it’s always tricky to find the right balance. 

Boundaries will always have to be drawn but, in the real world, individuals and companies will still live, work and play across those lines. 

Devolution led to the formation of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) in 2016 and while Coventry is a fully-fledged part of the WMCA, Warwickshire sits as a non-constituent member. As part of its Devolution White Paper, the Government wants all two-tier authorities to become unitaries. Here, that means our borough and district councils will go, and will lead to either one council body for the whole of Warwickshire or two; one for the north and one for the south.  

We had a really interesting debate on this with Sir Jeremy Wright MP and John Slinger MP at our Annual Business and Economic Conference a few weeks ago. Whichever route we go down, it’s a seismic shift in local government. But, as we know only too well in this region and as I alluded to above, businesses and individuals don’t live their lives by political boundaries or structures. Firms work with companies close by or where there are natural synergies. Individuals look for jobs that they can commute to easily. 

All of this happens thousands of times a day across Coventry and Warwickshire and it’s vitally important that we continue to champion the city and the county; not as two separate places, but as one. The economy of Coventry and Warwickshire works in harmony.  And, while we work closely and positively with the WMCA, there is still a very natural relationship between our city and county. 

The Chamber is a longstanding champion of this region. Our former chief executive Louise Bennett was instrumental in setting up the CWLEP, which was one of the most highly-regarded in the UK and that really strengthened relationships between Coventry City Council and Warwickshire County Council, alongside the private sector. 

This is a powerful relationship and is one to be nurtured for the good of the whole of the West Midlands because its success depends on the growth of Coventry and Warwickshire through joined-up, focused policies that don’t see local borders. 

Our tourism offer is interlocked too. If you are visiting Coventry Cathedral, there is every chance that you’ll be taking in Warwick Castle and the delights of Stratford-upon-Avon too and, again, this needs to be fostered through bodies such as Destination Coventry and Shakespeare’s England. 

I also look at our local employment land interest, which is more compelling than anywhere else in the region. Across Coventry and Warwickshire there is a list of sites that can create tens of thousands of jobs, so we need a joint effort to get the supply chain and workers ready for this, as well as joined-up, well-resourced planning teams to move it forward. 

Take Frasers Group’s plans at Ansty Park. It sits inside the Rugby constituency and is, therefore, a Warwickshire scheme. But it will 100 per cent be a driver of growth for Coventry and the wider West Midlands too, as well as Warwickshire.  

It’s for these reasons and more that we, as a Chamber, have instigated the creation of a new business assembly for Coventry and Warwickshire that brings together businesses, local authorities, education institutions and MPs. We’ve written a manifesto that was made in Coventry and Warwickshire and is something we will campaign on for the city and the county. And, while the final decisions on what happens in Warwickshire are taken, it’s vitally important that it isn’t left behind in areas such as business support. The concerning news from the recent Budget was the lack of money coming directly to the county for business support because regional pots are being directed to Combined Authorities and, if you fall outside one of those, you go into a national bidding process. It's something we, as a Chamber, will continue to raise because it’s vitally important for regional growth.