How should councils react to the pandemic?
We have often asked the Executive and the Assembly how they will approach economic recovery post-pandemic but many of the problems created by this pandemic have been regionally specific and need regionally specific answers.
How will small towns retain their high streets? Where will agriculture go post-brexit? How do we encourage innovation? While these are questions that can be affected by Stormont, oftentimes it is councils who can have a similar level of impact upon events if the right course of action is taken.
That is where Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon (ABC) council come in, as they have attempted to answer some of the questions businesses have worried about. ABC council have released a strategy, developed and researched by KPMG, for tackling the post-pandemic local economy. We will have a look at that strategy and see what the basic framework is, so we can imagine how it could be implemented in other councils.
The Plan
First, the plan divides the area into its main three hubs (Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon) and establishes the strengths and weaknesses of each (e.g. Craigavon is NI's second industrial centre however, people see it as having a reputation as a failed town project).
Following this, they then focus on three industrial fields to be developed upon, each already having some form of existing infrastructure in the area:
Agri-food - low volatility in industry and an established industry in the area / Needs to move up the value chain and see better operational investment for the future
Health and Life Sciences - Withstands economic shock, needed as population ages and ABC view it as an area which they could specialise in / Need to create a larger community in the area.
Advanced Manufacturing - High salaries and high growth market / Has been set back by pandemic and will take time to recover the industry completely.
Then we come on to the section where the ABC council establishes what actual actions need to be taken to take advantage of the potential in the above fields. ABC council have set out short, medium and long term goals to see them advance from this pandemic but have also organised those tasks by difficulty and complexity:
3 months time-
Easy: Increase footfall in towns and support customer confidence
Medium: Create financial resilience and support operational resilience
Hard: Support businesses and support educational training
12 months time-
Easy: future proofing road infrastructure investment and create case for multi accessible roads for cyclist/pedestrians/mobility
Medium: Urban regeneration and improve digital connectivity
Hard: Drive rural development
3 years time-
Easy: Incubation and Innovation investment while supporting regional competition
Medium: Enable technology development and investing in tourism
Hard: Invest in infrastructure of the future
The first three months are clearly a recovery stage which looks to prevent further damage to the local economy. Following that, they are attempting to create a basis for developing on their goals and, in three years time, they hope to start seeing some realistic but positive change. Each point has further development within the plan but we won’t look at every single point in depth for the sake of brevity.
Underneath all of this planning, KMPG have also been conducting thorough interviews with local stakeholders, ensuring they understand their perspective on the pandemic and using that to lead their plans.
Additionally, they broke down some key components in achieving their goals and have set out how they want to approach those going forward. These components are commuting patterns, community sentiment and budget analysis. With those components they have created a hypothesis, a set of interdependencies and the next steps in improving their weaknesses.
For example, ABC council believes that travel within their council is not cohesive (not much travel between Banbridge, Craigavon and Armagh) and more commuting occurs between the surrounding councils and their own hubs (e.g. Lisburn to Banbridge travel). For this, ABC wants to see more in depth data on commuting patterns in the area and see where the gaps form so a proper plan of action can be created, or how this could be used to their advantage.
Another section has also been created to highlight the need for green thinking surrounding the economic plans of the future. This should ensure that ABC keeps up with the green ambitions which the following years will hopefully see improved.
Most importantly, ABC council have ensured they evaluate their current position coming out of the pandemic, focusing on the position of manufacturing and employment levels. This should allow for a proactive response to employment challenges facing a post-lockdown economy.
Link to the complete plan: https://www.armaghbanbridgecraigavon.gov.uk/recoveryandgrowth/
Overview:
The most basic outline for this plan is simple. Establish what fields your council thrives in as well as the strengths and weaknesses of those areas. Along with this, understand the general pros and cons of the area you function within, through this you can establish what might hinder or help your success in the future with the previously chosen fields.. Then create a timeline with staggered targets to be accomplished at various points, however it should be noted which tasks will be complex and which should be easy so you can adequately manage your resources and time.
Before all of this, interview the various stakeholders within your council to see how they view the potential recovery effort. In the same line of thought, ensure that you research environmentally conscious ways of improving local industry so that your council does not fall behind on the general trend. With that, you should be able to better inform the decision making process, this is where it will become clear what strengths and weaknesses exist in the fields which you are most likely to see developed over the coming years.
Similarly, throughout this process, it helps if you keep updated on how the pandemic has affected the area and the fields of interest which you are focusing on. By doing this you should be able to create a progressive plan of action which takes into account the real time situation your region faces.
Hopefully plans like these help us come out of this pandemic with hope for the future, rather than focusing on the despair produced over the past months.
