Conference News Supplements Meet the Midlands Supplement | Page 5
Investment
potential
Ian Flynn, inward invest manager at Invest Coventry
and Warwickshire, talks to Martin Fullard and provides
an overview on the region’s financial prosperity
How has the
Warwickshire region
grown over the last
decade?
Could you give us a
broad idea of how
business and
consumer events fair
alongside the region’s
economy?
It’s been very good. We did some
analysis recently and the Coventry
and Warwickshire area has the
highest productivity growth of any
area since 2009. We’ve benefitted
from the billions of pounds invested
by Indian automotive giant Tata into
Jaguar-Land Rover (JLR) over the last
10 years and a lot of that money has
gone into research and development.
JLR’s HQ is here, and we have the
powertrain centre at Whitley as well
as the new engineering centre at
Gaydon.
Over the last 10 years the standing
of this area, in terms of global
automotive, aerospace, and rail
engineering has really developed,
and certainly even in China but also
Germany, the specialist skills and
supply chain remains highly sought
after. Our local SMEs do a lot of work
for big European manufacturers.
There’s also been investment from
China, namely automotive giant
Geeley, which bought London Taxis
International to create the London
Electric Vehicle Company. They also
own Lotus and Volvo Cars.
5
Meet the Midlands
Over the last 10
years the
standing of this
area, in terms
of global
automotive,
aerospace, and
Working with him and other local
rail engineering partners, we have started to attract
more shows that reflect our strengths
has really
in technology. For example, a number
developed.
of battery and EV events have come
this way that are either new or
relocating here for the first time. It’s a
nice synergy between the events
industry and the local industry.
Are you confident that
the current
infrastructure can
support and increase
future large-scale
events? Yes. Coventry as City of Culture
encourages us to shine a light on local
offerings and we’ve identified
Coventry and Warwickshire spaces
we have which creates an inward
investment opportunity. We are
gearing up to attract more hotel
investments, in the city centre there
are four star hotels next to the station
and a madmen style redevelopment
to the Coventry Telegraph building. We
are seeing the interest in
Warwickshire. We’ve always had
William Shakespeare and the south of
the county is a strong tourist
destination, while the north has been
more about business.
What’s the appeal of
the region? I think it’s the mix of people and
talent. It’s a centrally located space,
close to Birmingham, and Heathrow
Airport is well connected by road and
rail. It’s a nice place, a mixture of city
and countryside. There are great
venues that are investing in their offer.
And also great events like the city of
culture and city of sport. Everyone
around the world knows Shakespeare,
we’ve got heritage in the automotive,
high tech businesses. We’ve got both
the history and current message and
exciting plans for the future. We are
looking to make the region more
attractive to large international
events.
I think we have strong venues here,
like the Ricoh Arena, Warwick
Conferences, NAEC Stoneleigh, and a
multitude of smaller venues. They
have all done very well by themselves.
There is, of course, the NEC and ICC
Birmingham. Chris Hartley, who
recently joined NAEC Stoneleigh, has
encouraged us to look at our area
more and to try and retain the shows
that one venue can’t host, where we
can share the knowledge with other
local venues, so we get the event to
the area.
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