The ‘Five Counties Regeneration Framework’

Following the reduction in steel manufacturing at the Corus works at Llanwern, the closure at Ebbw Vale and other reductions in the manufacturing sector, the Five Coun-ties Regeneration Framework (herein referred to as the ‘Framework’) was published as a sub-regional spatial development strategy covering the unitary authorities of Newport, Caerphilly, Mo nmouthshire, Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent. Funding was provided by WAG on behalf of the five councils, the Welsh Development Agency (WDA), and Education and Learning Wales (ELWa), and the main aim of the strategy was to give direction “for a new future if the sub-region is to flourish” (Shared Intelligence 2002, 1) through the achievement of objectives designed to increase prosperity and reduce inequality. While blame for the shifting economic landscape was placed on the easy movement of capital, people and technology, the Framework situated the Five Counties within a global market environment where it is competing with communities in Eastern Europe, the Far East and the rest of Western Europe (Shared Intelligence 2002, 20). In this context the ‘preferred vision’ set out by the Framework rested with the knowledge-based service economy¹¹ and was set against a sub-regional backdrop characterised by

10 According to an article in Rural Wales Magazine (Tanner 2003) while 58% of people in England live in cities of 100,000 or more only 24% of the Welsh do so: “The typical Welsh person, by contrast, lives in a small town or village.”

11 including a skilled and knowledgeable workforce, high SME start up rates, reduced t raffic congestion, several business parks within the region close to key transport nodes, an international logistics and distribution centre, data storage and processing centres, expanding endogenous business, rising rental and capital values, an improved tourism offer which correlates to an ‘explosion of visitors’, a high quality public transport network, Newport city centre as a major office and retail location, mixed-use riverfront developments and the physical regeneration of much of Newport, a vibrant cultural and café quarter, a national technology centre, an increasing population and a high quality of life.

severe levels of deprivation, poor rates of educational attainment, and high levels of youth and long-term unemployment.

There are two particularly interesting aspects of the city-region debate which the Framework highlights. The first is that the report directly challenged the position of Cardiff within the South East Wales hierarchy and the second relates to the importance of personal relationships in construction of city-regions.

Despite constant comparisons to the dominance of Cardiff relative to the performance of Newport across numerous economic indicators, the Framework did not seriously con-sider the relationship between the Five Counties city-region framework and the South East Wales-wide city-region framework progressed by Cardiff. Rather, it attempted to position itself as a more dominant entity in population terms than Cardiff, stating that,

“the [Five Counties] sub -region’s population accounts for approximately 19% (557,500) of the Wales total compared to 11% in Cardiff” (Shared Intelligence 2002, 3). Interest-ingly, the Framework includes very little recognition for Cardiff’s role, complementary or otherwise, in the achievement of the framework’s vision. One possible explanation for this is the poor political relationships which existed between CC and its neighbouring authorities and between CC and WAG at the time. However, it is likely that the Frame-work also implicitly supported the development of two city-regional frameFrame-works within South East Wales (and three in South Wales with a western city-region centered around Swansea), a model which would correspond to the voluntary institutions that were responsible for the strategic delivery of transportation with South East Wales. In South East Wales this included TIGER (Transport Integration in the Gwent Economic Region) which comprised the five local authorities of Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouth-shire, Newport and Torfaen, and SWIFT (South Wales Integrated Fast Transit) which comprised various transport operators and the six local authorities of Bridgend, Caer-philly, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda Cynon Taff and the Vale of Glamorgan.

The group of actors that were involved in the development¹² of the Framework for the Five Counties sub-region – i.e. those who defined the problems facing the area and how they should be addressed (see Hajer 1995) – consisted of elected members and officers from the included local authorities, WAG members, officials from the WDA, ELWa and additional local stakeholders. Following the draft publication of the Report the First Minister for Wale s drew on the Report as part of an ‘Anniversary’ statement to identify the top priorities for action and to provide the funding to meet them (Shared Intelligence 2002). This statement of support and the approach taken in developing the Framework are in stark contrast to the paucity of national- level support provided for the city-region concept as presented by Cardiff. While this point will be discussed in greater detail below, what is also interesting is that despite the existence of a strong coalition of supporters involved in the production and endorsement of the Framework, it did not prove to be particularly influential or robust within the tension- filled and rapidly chang-ing institutional landscape of South East Wales. Alignchang-ing with Morgan’s (2006c) argument that rescaling is a politically sensitive exercise, one interview respondent who participated in the Framework’s development stated that,

[s]ince that report’s come out, Newport’s taken it up and completely ripped up their old development plan and there is a new one based on Newport as the centre of the universe with you know, massive increase in population, housing and everything else. Bit of consternation from its neighbouring authorities about this, but Monmouth is quite happy with that because it wants Newport to have its growth but the valleys see it as taking investment away from them (Local Authority K, personal commu-nication, 14 September 2007).

This may suggest that Newport failed to learn earlier lessons from the city-region literature regarding the conseque nces of ignoring the maintenance of relationships between core cities and the surrounding hinterland. Nevertheless, as the three radically different city-regional strategies demonstrate, the lack of national guidance on this important urban issue allowed for a series of competing narratives to develop take their respective places within the city-region discourse of South East Wales; A newly formed

12 Although the Report was produced by a consortium of private consultancies the scope and terms of reference for the Report were defined by the five local authorities and representatives from these and other regional bodies were active in the progressing the Report and informing its content.

political space which noticeably lacked a sufficient thickness of regional or sub -regional institutional architecture.