Bill Gleeson: TMP needs team’s 100% commitment

Aug 22 2007 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

LORRAINE ROGERS’S arrival into the top job at inward investment and tourism agency, The Mersey Partnership, is just days away. It can’t come a moment too soon.

Figures from Ernst & Young’s European Investment Monitor shows Merseyside is still a long way behind Manchester when it comes to attracting inward investment from overseas.

Of the 40 foreign direct investments (FDIs) into the North West in 2006, just eight came to Merseyside – up from five in 2005 – while Greater Manchester saw 22, a big increase on the 13 a year earlier.

The actual rate of growth between the two regions is very similar but we are so often told that Merseyside needs to play catch-up – not much evidence of that among these figures. Why should this be?

TMP’s equivalent in Greater Manchester is Midas. In 2006, its chief executive Colin Sinclair clocked up 53,000 global air miles in his quest to attract foreign inward investment.

His world tour took in Nice, New York (twice), Los Angeles, other parts of California, China and Australia. Setting aside the issue over his carbon footprint, this is an impressive effort. It shows that getting out there and busting a gut on behalf of your region pays dividends.

When I asked TMP about its foreign travel, it could name only San Francisco and Washington, although it did point out it has only a third of the budget that Midas has. Operations director Mark Basnett added it was now establishing a single investment agency embedded within the organisation with more resources.

“We believe the Liverpool City Region is extremely well-placed to secure significant new inward investment and to compete with cities right across Europe, not just those down the M62,” he added.

In terms of the city centre, the complaint for a long time was that Liverpool did not offer the quality office space in sufficient quantity to satisfy blue-chip requirements. This has now been addressed in the shape of developments like 20 Chapel Street and St Paul’s Square. The product is here but where are the big occupiers?

TMP clearly needs to get its backside into gear, especially as the newly-formed Liverpool Plc will soon be coming down the mountain. The new body’s backers on the city council are already starting to openly question whether it should take the inward investment role for the city away from TMP.

As a member of TMP’s board, city council leader Cllr Warren Bradley is treading carefully, talking about the two organisations working “side by side”.

However, in what might be interpreted as a warning to TMP, he has also said: “I do not want to see us wasting money on bureaucracy and administration when we could be spending it on investment and the development of Liverpool’s long-term future.”

The council’s executive member for corporate services, Cllr Peter Millea, has been more forthcoming, stating openly that Liverpool Plc should take on the inward investment role completely.

This is sure to cause concern among the other boroughs surrounding Liverpool, who may fear the city will aggressively woo potential investors at their expense.

Moves in the past to rebrand Merseyside as the Liverpool City Region provoked mutterings of discontent in some areas of the county. Publicly, most are showing a united front behind TMP but that could change once Liverpool Plc starts to flex its muscles.

TMP still has time to really show it means business. The organisation needs blood, sweat and tears from its new chief executive and its entire inward investment team; a 100% full-blooded commitment to work day and night until the region is punching its weight economically.

tonymcdonough@dailypost.co.uk