Agenda item

The Town Deal Board considered a report on the progress made to date by the Lincoln Town Deal Delivery Board.

It was reported that the following milestones had been achieved:

·         analysis and final report on evidence base and stakeholder consultation;

·         convening of Delivery Board and workshop sessions to identify high-level vision, outcomes and priorities for further development with associated leads;

·         project proforma and scoring criteria for high level assessment developed and circulated;

·         wider stakeholder consultation taking place via a virtual Citizen Panel reaching 600 residents in March 2020.

A proposed programme to meet the accelerated timeline, allowing for development of high-level project proposals and appraisal, stakeholder consultation and internal reporting to meet the lead Council’s requirements was set out in the report, culminating in approval of the final Town Investment Plan in May 2020.

The proposed vision for the Lincoln Town Deal was noted as follows:

‘A world class heritage city with a diverse and dynamic economy; where harnessing the power of digitalisation drives investment, productivity, skills, innovation, business growth and employment to improve service delivery and raise the quality of life for all, securing Lincoln’s future as a successful and sustainable, smart and prosperous city where people want to be.’

Four key outcomes of the Lincoln Town Deal were proposed as follows:

·         ‘Lincoln will realise its full potential as a vibrant Cathedral city through effective digital promotion and continued investment in its cultural, leisure and heritage assets. The regeneration of strategic sites will further strengthen the urban core through the development of high quality, sustainable workspace and city living to satisfy a growing demand’;

·         ‘Building on its strengths as a centre for learning and research, Lincoln will position itself as a Living Lab – the Lincoln Living Lab – where organisations can collaborate, co-design and test innovative products and services to enable smart growth’;

·         ‘The delivery of a Sustainable Transport Strategy, underpinned by digital technology, will enable efficient movement through the city and work with partners will strengthen the already strong inter-city connections to and from Lincoln’;

·         ‘Investment in training will be tailored to serve industry, the key growth sectors and to address skills gaps. Lincoln will seek to secure the local delivery of specialist training (such as digital coding) to improve workforce skills and support a transition to a higher skill, higher wage economy in which everyone can participate’.

In order to meet these key outcomes, four key delivery areas had been defined as follows:

·         digital connectivity: hard and soft infrastructure;

·         transport connectivity: Lincoln Transport Strategy;

·         skills;

·         city centre vibrancy and urban regeneration.

Emerging activities and projects had been assigned to each outcome, as set out in the report.

Leo Smith Scott provided an update on the Lincoln Living Lab proposal, which would be a place for organisations to test their technology, pilot their innovations and develop their ideas in a collaborative, supportive environment as part of the public-private-people partnership. The Living Lab concept as part of the Town Deal consisted of Lincoln itself becoming a city-wide Living Lab which, in effect, would open up the city to technology companies and entrepreneurs, promoting it as an area that sought innovation and was keen to drive forward new projects. This could result in large technology companies or small start-up businesses coming into the city, bringing with them skilled jobs and consequential economic growth with other organisations then wanting to be located in Lincoln as its reputation in the sector grew.

Mary Stuart made the point that, as keen as she was for companies to come into Lincoln and test their technology as part of the Living Lab concept, it was vitally important to know that the model could work in practice in Lincoln. With regard to the earlier item at this meeting in respect of capacity funding, the notional allocations of funding referred to in that report made more sense against the context of this programme for the Lincoln Town Deal. It was fundamental that the Living Lab concept could be tested in a small way initially in order to confirm whether or not it would work.

Kate Ellis reported that the Delivery Board’s discussions had been around what the future looked like for Lincoln and what needed to happen in order to achieve this. As part of these discussions, everything came back to the use of digital technology and how this was a key growth sector. Lots of jobs had changed or would be changing to embrace digital technology in the future, providing challenges of skill level and infrastructure.

Noting that digital interaction would be so significant in the future, the Delivery Board considered how Lincoln could make this transformative and looked into other areas where the Living Lab concept had been successful. Amsterdam and Antwerp were excellent examples, however, Barnsley also had a very good Living Lab in operation which had already managed to attract a lot of investment and cluster of skills. In order to put a Living Lab in place in Lincoln it would be necessary to build up the digital sector of the city but ensure that other sectors who could benefit were not left behind. Tourism, transport and retail, for example, all had digital elements to them. Officers were therefore in the process of developing a digital strategy for the city in order to properly understand the current position from a digital perspective. It was then proposed that a test be undertaken to establish whether the city could be used as a Living Lab based on productivity and business benefits, over a period of approximately six weeks. If the testing proved to be successful it would provide a great deal of evidence to substantiate further development of the concept.

Mary Stuart reflected on the issue of marketing previously considered under the capacity funding item earlier at this meeting, and now understood that this marketing campaign would be used to attract companies and organisations to come to Lincoln to test their technology, as well as promote a lifestyle in Lincoln and the wider opportunities that were available. This was about getting talent into the city together with place marketing about Lincoln.

Kate Ellis confirmed that the ‘Be Lincoln’ brand would be solely for that purpose, independent from the University of Lincoln, local businesses and Visit Lincoln.

Leo Scott Smith expressed slight reservations that the Town Deal was seeking to do too much at once and felt that focussing on one particular area would create more of an impact, which other things would subsequently be able to grow around. He was concerned that by spreading resources too thinly across a range of projects there was a danger that the potential economic benefit would be lost.

Edward Strange said that it was essential to bring the latest and newest ideas into Lincoln and was very keen for the Town Deal Board to progress down the route proposed as part of the Lincoln Living Hub concept. He was of the view that Lincoln needed to attract the large technology companies which could revolutionise the city similar to the way in which the University of Lincoln had since its establishment. He saw this as a significant next stage for the city of Lincoln.

Ursula Lidbetter reflected on the work of the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership and the timeframes that were put in place by Government with regard to allocating and spending funding. It would be essential to know what was deliverable in order that this could be demonstrated to Government.

Kate Ellis agreed that things needed to be narrowed down, but with a concentration on what could be delivered as part of the Town Deal. Officers did not know enough about the digital agenda yet, which was why it was necessary to trial the Lincoln Living Lab concept through capacity funding. It was for this reason that, at the moment, a range of projects were ongoing so that further work could be undertaken to determine what would work and what could provide the most benefit as part of the Lincoln Town Deal.

It was RESOLVED that:

(1)       Progress made by the Lincoln Town Deal Delivery Board be noted.

(2)       The Lincoln Town Deal Programme and Emerging Vision, as set out in the document, be agreed.