Nick Walkley on leading Cheshire’s devolution ‘start-up’

A mayor for Cheshire and Warrington’s fledgling combined authority will not be elected for another 12 months but the interim chief executive is hard at work creating a platform for him or her to hit the ground running.

It is former Homes England chief executive Nick Walkley’s job to set up the combined authority and lay the foundations for an organisation that will improve the lives of residents. It is a role he is relishing.

“There are very few people in this country who can actually say they’ve been asked to start a public body virtually from scratch,” he told Place North West.

“This is a start-up. We haven’t got an office and we didn’t have a bank account until two weeks ago. I am thinking about wearing ripped jeans and getting a mohawk to go the full start-up vibe.”

Walkley, who was most recently Avison Young’s UK president but has spent the vast majority of his career in the public sector, is charged with putting in the ground work to create a stable footing for a mayor to enter the fray in May 2027.

Cheshire and Warrington has a lot of ground to make up on neighbouring Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region when it comes to shaping its devolved future.

Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, and Warrington councils applied to become a devolved authority as part of the government’s priority programme, which aims to give more powers to more areas in a bid to decentralise the country.

The point of the exercise is to have a seat at the table when it comes to conversations about where funding is going to be deployed. Increasingly, places run by mayors are being looked upon favourably both by government and private sector investors as non-mayoral areas are left fighting over scraps.

But Walkley bristles at the suggestion that Cheshire and Warrington’s place in the pecking order behind its North West counterparts is of its own making.

“Cheshire already is a really strong economy and an economy that to some extent Manchester and Liverpool depend on,” he said.

“People say you’ve joined the North, and my response is we haven’t f****** picked ourselves up from the Isle of Wight and carried ourselves here. We have been here all along, you’ve just been ignoring that we are.”

Cheshire West and Chester Leader Cllr Louise Gittins with Walkley at the very first combined authority meeting. Credit: via Social

A different model of devolution

The question of what devolution will look like in Cheshire and Warrington is one Walkley and his growing team are grappling with.

The area functions very differently from a city region like Greater Manchester and Liverpool, two of the forerunners of English devolution. In those places there is a clearly defined city at the heart of a wider conurbation that serves as an obvious landing spot for investment.

Walkley argues that Cheshire and Warrington might actually benefit from not having a large city’s gravitational pull.

“If you look at both Manchester and Liverpool…they missed opportunity by overly focusing on the city,” he said.

“There is loads of stuff going on in the other smaller urban centres and some of that is equally deserving of funding.”

He added: “You need a place to work as a whole. So I think it may be an advantage [that] we don’t have a big urban centre because it takes that immediately out of the equation.”

The interim chief executive cautioned against the idea of dividing funding up into thirds for each of the three local councils that make up the combined authority. He would rather be led by the data.

“We’ve got a duty to make sure we gather the best evidence, [that] we present options so that any mayor who does come in can be confident that they’re not going to take poor decisions on the basis of poor evidence,” he said.

Enhancing rural communities, building on Cheshire’s strong life sciences and energy sectors, making the county more attractive to international investors, and transforming Crewe into “a model for regeneration of a historic town” are a few of the things Walkley hopes the combined authority will focus on.

Improving connectivity around and in and out of Cheshire and Warrington should also be high up on the priority agenda, Walkley said.

“There are bits of Cheshire that haven’t seen a train or a bus in any regularity for 10 or 15 years.

“Focusing efforts on them, to afford them the same sorts of opportunities and connectivity as those who live close to the major urban centres, can have a massive impact.”

Could Crewe become a regeneration exemplar? Credit: PNW

Leveraging investment

The government will give Cheshire and Warrington Combined Authority £20m every year for the next 30 years as part of its devolution agreement. The key to the success of the area will be leveraging that funding in creative ways to unlock private sector investment.

One way that Greater Manchester has sought to do this is through the creation of the Good Growth Fund, a £2bn pot of public and private sector cash aimed at unlocking transformative projects across the conurbation.

Walkley sees no reason why this sort of initiative, which took GM 10 years to devise, couldn’t be one of the first things Cheshire and Warrington seeks to establish.

“We can do things at pace, because others have gone before us,” he said.

Speaking from experience, creating an investor-friendly environment will be crucial to the success of the combined authority Walkley is building. As a two-time local authority chief executive, he has witnessed the sometimes surprising results of this approach.

“I worked in Hackney when it was in real financial difficulty,” he said. “We didn’t write into any of the plans that Shoreditch and Hoxton would become the coolest tech place in Europe.

“Sometimes things just come out our left field once the economy starts moving. The marvellous thing is entrepreneurs and people, they kind of take over and we’ve got to allow for that.”

Warrington could benefit massively from the Manchester to Liverpool rail opportunity. Credit: PNW

One project that could do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to opening the door to investment is the proposed Liverpool to Manchester railway line, which will pass though Warrington’s Bank Quay station.

“There isn’t really anything holding back more investment coming to Warrington and Warrington Bank Quay [station] could be the major lever for that,” he said.

“That’s got to become a hot spot, hasn’t it? That rail investment provides a massive opportunity to really supercharge growth in and around the centre of Warrington.”

Leaving a legacy

While setting up a combined authority from scratch affords opportunities to be pioneering, it also comes with pressure.

One person who Walkley might have sought guidance from is no longer around to give it. Eamonn Boylan, a friend of Walkley’s who set the course of devolution for Greater Manchester and others, died suddenly in April.

Eighteen months ago, Boylan picked Walkley’s brains about Homes England before the former embarked upon a stint as interim chief executive. It was a favour that sadly cannot be returned.

“Just when I could do with him as a ‘phone a friend’ he’s not here anymore,” Walkley said ruefully.

Eamonn Boylan died in April. Credit: via GMCA

“One of [Boylan’s] great strengths was never being afraid to reach out, have that conversation, listen, and express his view. You always felt like you were learning something through it.”

Regardless, Walkley has developed a trusted network of contacts well-placed to nudge him in the right direction up until the mayoral election in a year’s time. It is at that point he will shave off his mohawk and say goodbye to his start-up.

“I’ve been really clear. I’m here to build the institution,” he said.

“Quite often, the bloke who founded the start-up either sells up or becomes the chairman and steps aside because it’s a different job once the organisation is running.”

Will it be difficult to leave something with such transformative potential in its infancy? Walkley said he is trying to convince himself the answer to that question is no and that his stint will be short but impactful.

When asked what people will be saying about his tenure in 10 years time, he answers in typically humorous fashion: “That statue of Nick Walkley in the middle of Chester is very attractive.”