Leeds City Region Investment Week: ‘We’ve got potential to be the best’
LEEDS City Council chief executive Tom Riordan is travelling to next week’s international property conference MIPIM with the message that Leeds is on track to be the best city in the UK.
Speaking to TheBusinessDesk.tv, Mr Riordan said Leeds had a compelling story to tell with the Trinity Leeds shopping centre and Leeds Arena both set to open shortly.
Mr Riordan will travel as part of a delegation of senior figures from the public and private sectors from Bradford, Leeds, Wakefield and York under the banner Leeds City Region Investment Week.
MIPIM, held in Cannes in France, is one of the world’s biggest property conferences and attracts thousands of developers and investors from across the globe.
[VIDEO: 620] “I’ve been in economic development for 10 years now and CEO for seven of those years and I’ve never been to MIPIM,” said Mr Riordan.
“And the reason I haven’t is that I’ve always felt we’ve had other people who could do the job and the time wasn’t right if you like.
“But this year I have been totally persuaded that now is the time to get that message across. We’re the third biggest city in the UK, we’ve got the potential to be the best and we need to get out there to sell that message.”
Mr Riordan said being the best city in the UK meant striking a balnace between “the great economic momentum we’ve got now and the jobs that are going to come into the economy so that people can enjoy the benefits of that”.
As well as a number of major developments being delivered in Leeds and the wider city region this year, Mr Riordan pointed to the quality of life, green spaces and cultural assets of the area.
“If you look at the economies of the UK and the economies of Europe there are few cities that can say they’ve got 1m sq ft of retail opening this year with Trinity, or they’ve got a state-of-the-art arena that the operators think are going to be in the top five in the world within two years,” he said. “So there’s great confidence I think underlying the Leeds economy and that’s got to be good for Leeds.”
Other positives include the development of a trolleybus scheme for Leeds, improvements to flood defences, and a government City Deal that will bring £1bn of investment coming into the Leeds City Region.
“All of that gives the private sector the foundation they need to invest in a city like Leeds, to make money and at the same time create jobs for us in the North of England.”
