From the Council Leader: Building the gateway to our future prosperity

M62 Bridge

​​​​​Turning around 50 years of long term economic decline is never easy. Ever since we lost our textile manufacturing base to cheap foreign imports in the 60s, it has been a real struggle to attract new industries​ to our borough.

It's not just a problem for Rochdale. Every northern industrial town has been in the same boat.

It didn't help that the Thatcher government of the 80s virtually wiped out our manufacturing industries – coal, steel, car manufacturing and engineering all went abroad – as the government turned the country for the best part into a financial and service economy. Good for some parts of the UK, but a disaster for our industrial heartlands.

It's been a long and difficult haul back, but we have made remarkable progress given the mountain we have had to climb.

We have seen new jobs created in advanced textiles and manufacturing. We have high-tech companies trading in everything from graphite and bio sciences to plant and equipment for nuclear submarines and world-beating spring making.

Today, a greater percentage of people are employed in manufacturing than any other borough in Greater Manchester.

Given our unique location on the motorway network we are also a major distribution centre employing thousands of people. Don't let anyone kid you these are all low-skilled, poorly paid jobs. They are not. They employ highly-skilled drivers, logistics managers, electricians, engineers, accountants and finance and HR staff. We need a wide variety of jobs to match the various level of skills of the local population.

We are outstripping our neighbours in our record on skills and training to upskill our workforce. Our sixth form college is the best in the country. Hopwood Hall vocational college is the most successful in Greater Manchester.

Rochdale is leading all other local councils in getting more of our youngsters into apprenticeships. In Rochdale, we even top up the government training allowance by £2,000 per apprentice to encourage local teenagers to take up higher level training.

The latest big challenge is creating the Northern Gateway. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create the space needed to attract new jobs and industries to our area. As industrial land dries up in the south of Greater Manchester, we can use our unique position – both geographically and with our transport connectivity – to be the economic powerhouse of the conurbation over the next 20 years. The Northern Gateway will create 19,000 new jobs over the next two decades. If we are serious about halting our long term economic decline, and with it the poverty and deprivation, we cannot let this opportunity slip by.

The Northern Gateway will create more than one million square metres of new business floor space at three sites, including land between south Heywood and Bury. It will also double the size of Stakehill Business Park in Middleton. The Pilsworth and Heywood Business Parks, along with Stakehill, are already hugely successful and are all almost full. We need to start planning now to create the industrial space we need to grow and thrive.

The stakes have never been higher, we must seize the opportunity to create a more successful and prosperous borough for all our residents, and the workforce to come.

The Northern Gateway will mean more skilled and better paid jobs, boosting the borough's economy and provide good jobs our future generations need.

We cannot create this huge opportunity without taking some greenbelt land., and that's the tough choice we have to make.

We have to make a clear choice: good jobs or green fields.

The growth we need to build over the next 20 years cannot be achieved on redundant brownfield land alone. Having said that, it means utilising just 4% of green belt land with additional green belt designated. Even after 20 years, Rochdale will still be the greenest place in Greater Manchester with over 58% of our borough's remaining green belt.

That, I sincerely believe, is a price worth paying. For Rochdale. For jobs, For prosperity. For our future.​​​​​​

Councillor Richard Farnell
Leader
Rochdale Borough Council