NATO Summit 2014 yet to show any signs of delivering on 'opportunity' promise

The closer the NATO Summit gets, the further away the much hailed 'opportunities' retreat. With the revelation that the vast majority of journalists will be accommodated in Cardiff, it becomes clear that the promise of a huge media presence in the city and a chance to showcase ourselves is evaporating. One of the biggest carrots has gone rotten... 

Media accreditation is now open for the NATO Summit Wales 2014. Up to 1,500 journalists and other media representatives now need to register and go through security scrutiny before they can receive their passes to attend. Pretty standard stuff for such an event.

The Summit has been hailed as a 'great opportunity' for Newport, and although public feeling has done a 180 degree U-turn against the event, there are still die-hards insisting that it's going to be great for the city. But while we learn daily of more ways in which the Summit is going to be one big, expensive inconvenience, we have yet to see any actual sign of a benefit beyond 'it will raise the profile of the city'. Excuse me while I yawn.

The arrival in Newport of the massed ranks of the media has been one of the main carrots dangled from the start. The expectation was that thousands of journos would be descending on the city with their expense account credit cards, buying 'I Love Newport' t-shirts, eating in our restaurants, drinking in our pubs, and writing glowing reports of what a fabulous city this is and how people and businesses around the planet should think seriously about coming here.

That carrot has now passed its 'use by' date.

As well as opening registration for media passes, the Government has also appointed HRG as the nominated agency to book hotel accommodation for journalists and media crews who wish to attend the NATO Summit Wales 2014. It's a convenient service for international media flying in from all corners of the globe - a one-stop-shop where they can book their accommodation securely through a Government appointed representative.

However, there are only six hotels listed on the HRG webpage, and guess what? Four of the six are in Cardiff. But the picture for Newport is even bleaker because combined the two Newport hotels have only 346 rooms between them. The other 1154 rooms needed will be in the capital. So while a third of the hotels are in Newport, less than a quarter of the rooms needed are.

Obviously this is great news for Cardiff, its restaurants and businesses. And we can confidently predict there will be vastly more international promotion for Cardiff than Newport in any coverage surrounding the Summit. In fact, it will be pretty damned hard to find much positive pro-Newport coverage at all following the event.

But we have to be realistic here, because Newport is not overly well endowed with hotel accommodation away from the cluster around the Coldra roundabout. Once you take the Celtic Manor Resort out of the picture, the city simply doesn't have the capacity to comfortably accommodate 1,500 international journalists who will (rightly) be expecting something a bit better than the Travelodge in the city centre. So if you are the Government organising the Summit, it makes sense to work with Cardiff hotels. That's not where the issue lies here.

The issue is once again with the nonsense STILL being regurgitated by the die-hards and political optimists about 'a great opportunity' and how this is a chance to 'showcase Newport'. There are plenty of examples, for instance Conservative MP David Jones who recently tweeted...

.@NATOWales will be a huge opportunity to showcase Newport, one of the great commercial cities of Wales.
— David Jones (@DavidJonesMP) June 28, 2014

That's a big bold and oft repeated statement. But we need to see a bit of meat on the bones about how this is going to work. Because frankly, it's looking less obvious by the day.

Just having famous world leaders descending on Celtic Manor Resort simply doesn't cut it as an answer to the question, because it doesn't think through the reality.

Mr Obama and the rest will have very tight schedules and will be tied up with the business of the Summit. It is highly unlikely they will have the time or inclination to go out sightseeing in Newport, and indeed with tens of thousands of protesters in the city they will be deterred from doing so by their security. So we can count out the political delegations who won't dare to venture anywhere near Newport, and we can also count out the majority of journalists who, if they do venture into the city, will do so only to cover the protests.

So who does that leave? Who are we counting on to witness and report to the world on our showcase opportunity? And what actual form is the 'showcase' taking? Perhaps if somebody could convincingly answer these questions we will at least know who we are targeting and how the city is going to do it.

UPDATE
A meeting of the HOC Welsh Affairs Committee entitled 'International Representation and Promotion of Wales by UK bodies' is scheduled to take place 2.30pm Wednesday 9th July. It can be followed live at http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=15752

Newport BID a crucial element of city regeneration

Thursday 19th June saw around 40 business leaders, councillors and others attend the opening of the Newport BID Office. The event included presentations by Martin Tressider of Queensberry who is managing the Friars Walk development, and Julie Vellucci, Head of Regeneration at Newport Council. A planned presentation by Inspector Mike Richards on the impact of the NATO Summit was postponed.

The presentations by Martin Tressider and Julie Vellucci were impressive. Martin's presentation included a CGI flythrough of the Friars Walk development. While I remain cynical that such a development is needed in Newport at this moment in time, I have made clear my belief that if it must happen, Queensberry are the best choice to deliver. But while it all looks very nice in CGI where the sky is always blue, I still fail to see how the me-too retailers and food outlets will transform Newport into a destination that can attract people away from Cardiff, Cwmbran and Bristol, and I worry that Friars Walk will only serve to further suck the life out of Commercial Street.

Julie Vellicci's presentation impressed me more. For the first time I got a sense that there was some strategy behind the council's thinking. This is what has always been missing in Newport. The tradition has been for scatter-gun tactics whereby good money has been thrown at various bad redevelopment schemes with no concept of integration or any 'bigger picture' thinking. 'If you build it, they will come' is a seductive line for a movie about a guy building a baseball field for ghosts, but it doesn't always work in real life.

However, Newport City Council has clearly done some good work in standing back and looking long and hard to analyse just what the centre of Newport is, and what can be done to inject some life and vibrancy into it. They have even managed to divide it up into logical zones that include a retail zone, creative & education zone, entertainment zone, and gateway - and at long last the council is looking at how it can work with landlords to make best use of the stunning buildings we have to create accommodation and get more people living in the city centre.

A lot of physical work has been done to improve the city centre, for example outside Newport Market and at the top of Commercial Street, and a lot more physical work is planned. It's all good positive stuff and it complements the bigger picture ambition for Newport as defined by reNEWPORT that sees Newport's future as a technology hub.

So where does the BID fit into this, and why is it so important?

In case you don't know, BID stands for 'Business Improvement District'. Many towns and cities across the UK have BIDs in place and in the most basic terms; a BID delivers services - street cleaning, security, events, marketing - paid for by businesses within the BID area, that are additional to those delivered by the council.

I have a great interest in a Newport BID as I've done a lot of work helping to promote the Bath Business Improvement District - an impressive BID that has achieved much, including high levels of street cleaning, security, and a full programme of events that attract major footfall, such as getting the likes of Nicholas Cage to switch on the Christmas Lights. So I understand fully what a BID can deliver. However, it could be argued that a BID in an already successful and thriving city such as Bath is more of a nice-to-have than a need-to-have.

For Newport, a BID is an absolutely-must-have.

It's widely agreed that Newport city centre has pretty much hit rock bottom. Both the daytime and night-time economies have declined dramatically and public perception is at an all-time low. The reasons given for why people stay away are also universal and generally centre on 'there's nothing there', 'it's scruffy and dirty', 'I feel intimidated', and 'there's nowhere to park'. While the arrival of Friars Walk may begin to address the first and (to a degree) the last of these common criticisms, the wider scruffiness and poor state of the city around it will certainly impact negatively on the success of Friars Walk. People will either have to walk through a decomposing and scruffy city centre to reach the shiny new development, or park within Friars Walk and not venture out. Again, this will impact on the rest of the city. The ideal scenario would be one where footfall happily passes in and out of Friars Walk.

A BID has the potential to dramatically improve the rest of the city centre and address both the scruffiness and its intimidating nature. These two negatives have done an immense amount to speed the latter stages of decline and especially to deter older people from visiting. So the sooner these problems are addressed the better. My yardstick for success is my mother-in-law. The day she feels inclined to visit Newport over Cwmbran and doesn't complain about the state of the streets or the beggers and winos that scare her, I'll know that Newport is, finally, on the rise.

Businesses in Newport have been surveyed as part of a Scoping Study for the BID (certainly worth downloading and reading) and their opinions echo those of the public at large. The perception of crime is the third highest concern for businesses (after vacant premises and parking) and tackling anti-social behaviour their second highest priority (after parking).

There is a process before Newport can have a BID (you can read all about it at http://newportbid.com/about/) and it involves a vote from businesses in the proposed BID area. But such is the pressing need for a BID that any business voting against it will be voting against their own survival. In my opinion, it's that important.

In fact, I would go as far as to say a BID would do more for Newport than the Friars Walk development. It would help support local businesses and increase footfall to the businesses that have hung in there, and which stand to have what little footfall there is tempted away to the multinationals in Friars Walk.

I've been impressed by the team working hard to set up a Newport BID. They have enthusiasm, drive and commitment that hopefully will help to convince businesses that it's the right thing to do. It's certainly in the interests of both Queensberry and Newport City Council that a bid is set up.