Sunderland Economic Masterplan

Four global trends affect the future of Sunderland.

• Globalisation – accelerating the decline in traditional industries, but also fueling the city's recovery. Sunderland must build on local strengths and assets, including skilled labour and business expertise.
• Climate change and energy generation creating costs in limiting the impact of climate change but also opportunities in developing new business and employment.
• Technological change – the city must continually refresh and update its ICT infrastructure and the skills of its population to adapt to technological demands.
• People and skills – there is a growing premium on talent and skills and an ageing population brings new requirements for healthcare, social care and transport.

Sunderland is known for its coal mining and shipbuilding heritage, but in recent decades these industries have disappeared. Between 1975 and 1989 the city lost a quarter of its jobs. Since then Sunderland has replaced and exceeded the number of jobs lost, mainly through international business investment.

However, Sunderland suffers from serious deprivation as well as average wages that are lower than the rest of the UK. Because of its history, the city displays a development pattern which does not focus on a single centre. With the A19 and A1 becoming the main arterial connections, more recent development has been focused away from the urban centres. The resultant pattern of development is now dispersed. Sunderland needs to focus on its core as an important driver of the economy.

Port of Sunderland

The sunderland city centre has suffered from new employment developing almost exclusively on out-of-town sites and from depressed economic activity. Only 16.6% of the district's employment is located in the city centre compared with 33% in Newcastle upon Tyne, which means less spending power ‘on the doorstep’. Vibrant city centres largely depend upon the public using shops, restaurants and other facilities. Consequently, it has fewer shops and leisure facilities than it should.

There is an opportunity to use key development areas such as Stadium Village, the former Vaux site, Farringdon Row and the Port to shift the orientation of the centre towards the sea and river. Several assets should be exploited to benefit the city centre:

• The former Vaux site and Farringdon Row to provide a central business district
• The two University campuses becoming an integral part of the city centre
• The Minster area as a new Minster Quarter.

A linked chain of attractions could be developed on the north side of the river running from Stadium Village to Roker seafront. Making more of the riverside in this way would radically enhance visitor appeal.

Meanwhile, the centre would be made more attractive and easier to navigate with upgraded public areas and gateways, including the railway station. Better housing will help to enhance the centre as a whole and bring in new spending power.

Sunderland has assets outside the city centre that could help to expand the local economy:

• The university and college for business development and skills improvement.
• The port.
• Sunderland's digital connectivity.[3]
• Parks and green spaces, river and seafront.
• The range of business parks and companies already located there.
• Sunderland's track record at attracting international investment.
• Nissan for its sheer scale and also its intention to produce electric vehicles.

The current financial climate poses particular difficulties for commercial developments in the city centre. Consequently, the city will need to identify new sources of funding, build-to-let residential models and focus on pre-lets to enhance investor confidence.

Despite the creation of new jobs in the city in recent decades, Sunderland still suffers from high unemployment and a low skill base. If Sunderland matched the national picture then approximately 12,000 extra people would be at work. Sunderland has a high percentage of people qualified to National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) level 1 and 2 and fewer qualified to NVQ level 3 and 4 – with the latter more likely to be earning higher wages. Many of the better-paid jobs that do exist in Sunderland are taken by people who commute in from the surrounding areas.

Sunderland's labour force supplies local demand in the main. Eighty percent of those who work in the city also live in Sunderland. The private car (either as a driver or passenger) is by far the dominant transport choice for both residents and employees.

Sunderland's population decline appears to have halted but the city is still losing people in the 15-29 age group. Insufficient economic opportunities combined with weak housing, shopping and cultural attractions, are responsible for young people leaving Sunderland to find higher-skilled and higher-paid employment and career opportunities elsewhere.

Sunderland has a high carbon footprint, higher than that of Newcastle. Although industry accounts for a significant portion of this, it is domestic carbon output that drives the figure up. Partners in the city need to consider how residents and businesses can be helped to reduce their carbon footprint.

Moving to a low- and zero-carbon regional economy could attract organisations serving the technical needs of such an economy. Sunderland should focus on those low-carbon industries where it enjoys a competitive advantage and exploit their carbon-reducing potential as well as their economic benefits.

The growth of employment primarily in out-of-town locations has left the city centre underpowered as an economic driver. The scarcity of office jobs has hindered the development of better shopping and leisure facilities, leaving the centre insufficiently attractive to residents and businesses alike. This has made it difficult to improve the quality of the city centre. As a consequence, the city centre does not serve its purpose economically or socially.

Sunderland's economy remains too reliant on a narrow range of industries. The city has successfully moved from ships and coal to cars and contact centres, but does not have the variety of industries and career opportunities, nor the volume of well-paid jobs necessary to retain more of the younger population and to ensure a resilient economy.

In part, this narrow industrial base persists because Sunderland has been more successful in attracting international companies than in helping indigenous businesses to grow, as demonstrated by the scarcity of business start-ups in the city.

Sunderland is a city with a university, but does not yet possess the characteristics and qualities of a ‘university city’. Its two campuses are adjacent to the city centre but have not been properly integrated with it. The University of Sunderland has the potential to become an economic and culture-changing asset, with a strong civic role aligned with supporting the economic transformation of the city centre and of the city as a whole.

The relatively low skills and aspirations of the population mean that in general residents earn less than incoming commuters. Relatively few are highly qualified and an unacceptably large proportion of people of working age are not in work and therefore are not benefiting from the growing economy. The choice of housing in Sunderland has been limited in the past because of the large number of people in similar occupations on similar incomes. Housing choice has not kept pace with rising aspirations and incomes. As a consequence, the city has been losing younger people and young families.

University of Sunderland

The proposed vision is that Sunderland will become:

‘An entrepreneurial university city at the heart of a low carbon regional economy’

The Masterplan vision statement seeks to convey a number of central messages about Sunderland:

• The university will play a new role in the city's economic development
• The city will be a vibrant and attractive place, where enterprise is encouraged
• It will be at the heart of a newly designated “Low Carbon Economic Area” and must develop new infrastructure as part of this
• Its future is tied to the wider economy and the city must be collaborative and outward-looking rather than driven purely by local ambition

Sunderland must focus on a small number of important sectors and on the city centre, and do this by developing a low-carbon economy. It must make more of four key assets:

• Nissan, to exploit electric vehicle technology and become a world leader in producing electric vehicles,
• The University of Sunderland, to redefine the city as a place where knowledge is part of the way of life,
• The port, to enable the servicing of new offshore wind farms,
• Using development sites to create a new business district in the City Centre, more retail sites, and an electric vehicle technopole.

There are three stages to making the Masterplan part of policy:

• Stage 1 - securing stakeholder and political support for the Vision and Aims
• Stage 2 - securing commitment to the Masterplan in economic decision-making
• Stage 3 - aligning policy tools to support the Masterplan

To give clear accountability, Sunderland City Council Cabinet has authorised the formation of an Economic Leadership Board that will be responsible for the Sunderland Economic Masterplan.

University of Sunderland's CitySpace building

To measure performance against comparable cities, three categories of city have been selected: those that are “in the same boat”, namely Barnsley, Doncaster and Stoke-on-Trent; the “grass is greener” cities of Bolton, Swansea and Wigan, which have outperformed Sunderland economically in recent years; and finally the “rising stars” of Coventry, Derby and Plymouth that have increased population and established themselves on a powerful growth trajectory.

In order to catch up with the “grass is greener” cities and even emulate the “rising stars”, each delivery team has been given a set of performance measures, under each Aim, as follows:

Within five years, more people will be setting up their own businesses in Sunderland, with the city centre attracting a growing number of visitors, while the Nissan LEAF becomes an emblem of the city's low-carbon aspirations.

Within 10 years, there will be improved transport infrastructure, more high-speed digital connectivity and an improvement in Sunderland's skills, training programmes and educational attainment.

Within 15 years, Sunderland should look and feel different, with an expanding business district located on the former Vaux site and Farringdon Row, increasing pedestrian traffic in the Minster Quarter and other parts of the city centre, while waterfront cafes and bars begin to appear around the mouth of the Wear.

• Sunderland City Council's Economic Masterplan web page
• Sunderland City Council website
• https://www.leibish.shop