‘This is our moment’: Rotheram launches £10bn LCR growth plan

Steve needn’t worry about productivity: it’ll go through the roof as businesses find ever more inventive ways to utilise AI in preference to employing people. The rise in NI and the punitive measures in Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill mean it’ll quickly be more cost-effective to replace people with kit. Productivity per employee will sky-rocket, at the expense of embedding long-term unemployment (see France, if you don’t think that’ll happen).

I can’t help feeling sceptical about this plan.
Is it his way of trying to secure longevity in the Mayor’s office because now more than ever rival parties are looking stronger in the polls?
Also what has he really achieved that would have been done if he wasn’t here?

All sounds great, but why didn’t Mr Rotheram fight to get the government to pay the extra 10 million to secure the Astra Zeneca investment in Speke, why isn’t he asking the government to invest in improving LCR mass transit system (look at the state of Moorfields, no Merseyrail station for Skelmersdale) or asking the government why it continues to leave Liverpool out when relocating government departments. Everyone is bored of consultations and reviews, we need action.

I honestly don’t know why I am bothering to waste my breadth in a response about any nonsense Captain Chaos is promoting. Spewing falsehoods about increasing gross added value by 10 billion over 10 years and throwing in that ridiculous idea of a Mersey Barrage. Can he explain to me why the City region of Manchester has more than twice the value of GDP circa 110 billion than that of the Liverpool City Region. I am certain that with the right people in Charge at LCC with the correct business acumen. It wouldn’t be unrealistic to assume we could match Manchester’s GDP of 110 billion in the next decade. You’re selling yourself way short of where you should be pitching Mr Rotherham. However after fifty years of listening to all the hype and promises from LCC. I have finally come to my senses and except that the same rhetoric will still be spewed out over the next 50 years with no substantial changes ever taking place. If I was a Mancunian. I would be really proud of the City’s achievement over the last half century. Wake up or shut up Rotherham, my City deserves better.

If Steve’s imaginary barrage is the flagship scheme, it’s very difficult to have any confidence at all in any other aspect of his growth plan.
It doesn’t seem to involve much inward investment from the private sector either, just reinforcing the widespread notion in local Labour circles that the entire LCR economy can be grown and sustained by Beatles tourism and people who consume wealth, leaving the wealth creation to Manchester, and more good private-sector jobs to leak in that direction.

Do you remember when Astrazeneca pulled out of Speke investment and Rotheram said he wasn’t involved in negotiations. He is the mayor and wasn’t involved in 100s of millions pounds of investment talks.

Nevermind shovel ready by 2028 let’s get it started by 2026 steve.lets show the Westminster and the South what we can do.

Steve has had more than enough time to prove his impact as Mayor and he’s failed. His organisation continues to take a scattergun approach to the investments that it makes. Little reference to the private sector in the Plan which says a lot. Next May’s local elections may significantly change the political landscape in the city region, and Steve needs quickly for the reality of delivery to quickly match his rhetoric.

Well said get it built 12.03 , Mr Rotheram is part of the problem , i genuinely cannot recall any significant achievement he has delivered . The lack of trams and decent transport to the new stadium is shameful and will constrict its success and the surrounding areas . The contrast between our city and Manchester is stark and sad especially as its mostly self inflicted due to the local political rulers . The vast majority of people who subscribe and contribute to PNW all passionately want success for the city , quality jobs and developments is such a shame the city is run by amateurs stuck in 1980

I totally echo the comments and sentiments made and offered by Paul @ 5.37 and Get it built at 12.03. Mayor Rotherams talk of the proposed Mersey Barrage being ‘shovel ready’ by 2028 is pure fantasy. It has been talked about for decades and nothing has ever happened or in my view thanks to the enormous hurdles it will face before shovels hit the ground will remain just pure fantasy. The Garden Festival site and the Littlewoods building. Loads of talk but no do! Actions speak louder than words! I like many others that contribute to PNW just want the best for our fine city and we want to see things happening now and not in a ‘ten year growth plan’ or should it be a 20 or 30 year one. We are all tired of empty promises and ‘flights of fancy!’ Oh and the latest suggested idea from LCC of not letting cars park in Liverpool city centre will kill the city centre as people still want the convenience of going into town in their own cars in their own time and do not want to have to rely on public transport. I really really love our great city but I really do despair at times at how it is being run by LCC and the LCR’s Mayor Rotheram.

Well, at least he acknowledged the need to support the construction industry in the city region. We might finally see and end to letting jobs leave the city when they plan these projects that take ages to get on site.

More USELESS RUBBISH @!!!

The Region’s population has amazingly, maintained a 1.6 million population… Someone’s good at counting!

Of all the currently empty sites around the city centre, perhaps the one around the new Royal needs leaving a while pending the inevitable relocation of the Women’s Hospital and someone admitting the new Royal was horribly underspecified to cut costs, simply isn’t big enough – or easily adaptable – and will need fairly major rejigging which will be much more difficult once it’s hemmed in by the inevitable PBSA.
That Steve needs to keep talking up short-term construction jobs rather than what’s actually going to be there a few years on really highlights the complete void where ambition and a strategy should be.

The comments attached to the article says it all. People beginning to see through the constant spin coming out of Steve Rotheram, with very little in the way of significant delivery. Almost a decade in office and what are his great achievements?

Wheres the railway link to Speke and Liverpool Airport ? Transport around the city and city region needs much improvement.

At the recent Labour Conference in Liverpool Rachel Reeves never mentioned the Mersey Barrage. The only real big-up that Liverpool got was the mention of 4 rail stations, at Baltic, Woodchurch, Carr Mill, and Daresbury, hardly earth shattering stuff.

Can someone please list the inward investment successes led by Mayor Rotherham. You know, the major private sector-led projects that he and his team brought to the city. I’ll wait.

Meantime, he continues with the fantasy of the barrage – a complete distraction. You’ve been working on it for years, Mr Mayor, so you must now have a clear handle on the funding cocktail: who, when, how much? Do share.

Re@’9.57am More anonymous than others’ re the Mersey Barrage to the comment I would add ‘and where’ Mr Mayor is the barrage going to go as surely its position and subsequent infrastructure will affect businesses and residents for miles and miles around it. Is it going to be north of Everton’s new stadium on Bramley Moore Dock or is it going to be to the south of it? In fact does anyone know where it going to go? Perhaps no one knows because the chances are that people know that it will never ever happen!

Miliband was all over Sunday tv yesterday morning talking about Green Energy and all the jobs he was looking to create by way of wind technology etc, he never mentioned Tidal Power once.