To put the background of the report into some context, Newport has been on a downward spiral for some years. There are plenty of opinions about why, but nobody can deny that, since being granted city status, Newport has consistently failed to meet the accepted criteria of a successful modern city. Business, retail and good quality employment has been steadily receding, the city is getting (and feeling) poorer, it feels mismanaged, and nobody from the city's council appears capable of putting forward any serious suggestions on how to get out of the mess.
Perhaps the only truely ongoing positive is; that the people of Newport are becoming united and increasingly vocal in their concern about the rot that has set in.
On the face of it, in producing this report, the Welsh government has effectively tired of watching from the sidelines as the Capital's nearest neighbour is steered into further decline by a clueless council, and has sent in a team of people who actually know what they're talking about to work out what could and should be done to halt the decline, and crucially, to give Newport a future.
If you need an easy one line summary, the reNEWPORT report lays out what needs to be done to drag Newport into the 21st Century.
The report is extremely important. In living memory, there is one thing that Newport has been lacking - Vision [an opinion recently shared by Argus reporter Maria Williams]. The report delivers a vision.
The thought process should be obvious. Vision is the goal. To achieve the goal you develop a strategy, and to deliver the strategy you develop the tactics. At every stage, every decision you make as a city must have an eye on delivering the strategy to achieve the goal.
Within the report there are some 'nice-to-haves' in amongst the 'need-to-haves', such as fluffy ambitions for Newport to become UK or European Culture Capital in 2021 (which will take a gargantuan effort), but the report is broad and encompasses everything from heritage, to technology, to culture, to infrastructure and makes a lot of very sensible real-world suggestions that could be kicked off immediately.
By contrast, for decades, and without a vision or direction, the city elders of Newport have failed to recognise that the world is changing and consequently have made an endless sequence of stumbling bad decisions that have worked to make the city poorly equipped for the 21st Century. Planning decisions have been made without a view to consequence, growth or integration, and the result is a disjointed city which is difficult to get around, unwelcoming for business, with no game plan for growth, and which works against its own best interests.
For many people, the most surprising aspect of the report will be that it builds very much on the idea of Newport as a technology hub. But it shouldn't really be that much of a surprise when you consider the city's modern history with regards to technology in both enterprise and education. After the decline of coal mining and heavy industry, technology has been the unsung quiet-man success story of the region.
Technology and communications is a wise choice for a vision. For the last year and a half I've worked with one of the UK's leading technology PR agencies (based in Chepstow), representing some of the biggest global players in the fields of telecomms infrastructure, cyber security, networking optimisation and the like. This is a very successful and lucrative industry sector which is, to a degree, reasonably well protected against the effects of recession that can be so devastating for other industries (such as retail). It generates well paid employment, and there is no reason why Newport could not make great strides as a technology hub as the report suggests.
The report's modern-world conclusions will not sit well with the council. Indeed, we learned as much when the 'leader' of Newport City Council, Bob Bright, hurriedly dismissed the reNEWPORT report with 'we could all have written down those ideas'. He might as well have included the words 'new-fangled' in his banal critique. You need to read the word 'leader' with the same cynicism that I wrote it because Bright is a man who is increasingly the weak link of this current council and who appears as out-of-touch with the ambitions and wishes of the people of Newport as he could possibly be. I don't know and have never met Mr Bright, but on witnessing his performance at the recent extra-special meeting to vote on the £90 million loan for Friars Walk (the same meeting that he begrudgingly offered apology through gritted teeth for the Chartist Mural fiasco), he struck me as a singularly humourless, unimaginative and unmodern man as you could not want leading your city, and his only leadership qualities appear to be of the party political variety.
Bob Bright's comments have been received with the contempt they deserve, both publicly through the media, on social media, and in informal conversations. Again, this serves simply to illustrate the degree to which communication is another of Bright's key weaknesses. When he keeps schtum, as he did with the mural, he gets it wrong, and when he speaks off the cuff without consideration he succeeds only in leaving a nasty taste in the mouth.
Newport does have a bright future, but not a Bob Bright future. It needs the Welsh government and the experts to set the vision and the strategy on how to deliver. Bob Bright's council - and to be fair every previous council that I ever have known in Newport - are not, and never have been qualified or competent to be at the helm of a city which needs to sail on to more verdant shores. Let's face it, the council has never known how to steer the ship out of the harbour, let alone chart a course to a brave new world. But the reality is that the tide has gone out and the Good Ship Newport is run aground on the mud.
'The City of Newport... On The Rise' report is perfectly timed, is comprehensive and is much needed. At the moment it stands as merely recommendation, but the tone suggests that, in the face of ongoing complacency by Newport, it might well become something more. Personally, I can't wait. Bring it on.
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| Bob Bright's Twitter profile pic. The face of a bright and positive future for Newport? |
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