Powerful new group aims for world first in “clean growth”

A POWERFUL new group of public and private sector partners from Warrington, Cheshire, Manchester and Liverpool has come together to secure investment in clean growth in the North West.
Industry, university and local government leaders will collaborate in attract “game changing” investment.
Led by Richard Carter, chairman of the North West Business Leadership Team (NWBLT) and managing director of BASF for UK, the group have announced their response to the Government’s challenge to establish a Low Carbon Industrial Cluster by 2030.
The goal is a world first that would attract innovators, investors and problem solvers to create a low-carbon exemplar that others in the UK and internationally can learn from and replicate.
Mr Carter said: “This collaboration represents one of the most vibrant clusters in the UK with a wide range of energy intensive industry partners. We are already home to a number of existing complementary initiatives that, when brought together, represent a game-changing opportunity. We believe, with appropriate Government support, that this will result in the North West meeting the challenge of becoming the UK’s first low carbon industrial cluster by 2030.”
Christine Gaskell chairman of the Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership said: “There is no better place to be leading the clean-growth agenda than the North West – harnessing our world-class innovation track record, academic expertise and the energy-intensive industry that’s located here – through working together we can co-create the UK’s first low carbon, and in time, zero carbon, industrial cluster further cementing our international reputation and bringing new jobs and capital investment to the region.”
David Parkin, of Progressive Energy has been instrumental in bringing the partners together.
He said: “Innovation will be key to the success of this plan and the region is also supported by a network of experts in the field of industrial decarbonisation, from our major universities and from the private sector. The joint response sets out the decarbonisation challenge for the region, a proposed delivery model, and in excess of £500 million of prospective investment from the private sector.”
Pictured: Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool city Region, Christine Gaskell, chairman of Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership and Eamonn Boyle, chief executive of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.