Top backing for Great North Revolution campaign

Jun 20 2009 by Andrew Hebden, The Journal

THE recession is the ideal time to unleash a Great North Revolution which will ensure the region’s economy is fit for the future, it was claimed yesterday.

Lucy Armstrong, chief executive of The Alchemists, which supports fast-growing entrepreneurial firms in the region, said it was the ideal time to think boldly about how the North East economy might look in the future.

She made her comments during the first Great North Revolution online debate which was hosted on our websites yesterday and featured a panel including CBI director general Richard Lambert.

“A recession is very often a time when the most enterprising and innovative solutions come to the fore,” she said.

“If we concentrate only on the short term, we will fail to develop radical new ways of addressing society’s need and fail to provide for our children’s future.

“Standing still is not the low-risk option in a recession. These conditions call for action and innovation.”

Mr Lambert offered fulsome praise for the Great North Revolution campaign and said he “hadn’t seen anything else quite like this project anywhere else in the UK”.

He said the recent financial crisis had shown how the forces that had driven the economy’s growth over recent years – government spending, household consumption and the growth of financial services – had “run out of steam”.

“So we need to be looking for new growth areas for the future – business investment, high-value manufacturing, low-carbon industries, creative industries, software and the like.

“It’s this big-picture vision that is being developed in the North East, which the CBI is very keen to support,” he said.

Bob Coxon, chairman of the Science and Industry Council in the North East, agreed with Beccy Earnshaw, director of Schools North East, that skills and young people were also an essential part of the debate.

Mr Coxon said: “Defining the areas where we are going to compete will also tell us what skills are needed. We will be developing a skills plan to match those goals and it will be the role of schools and colleges to develop our young people to match those opportunities.”

He added: “We are going to choose the areas where we want to compete but we will not be blind to changes in the world.”

:: To replay yesterday's first Great North Revolution debate, go to www.journallive.co.uk/revolution