Troubled firms still waiting for Neville's big rescue plan
It is almost four weeks since the announcement-that-never-was detailing Birmingham City Council’s “rescue package” for firms hit by the slump.
Journalists were invited to attend a briefing on October 22, where cabinet regeneration member Neville Summerfield would outline important measures to help the business community through these troubled times.
Of course, we knew instinctively this couldn’t be all that important. If it was truly an important announcement, it would have been made by council leader Mike Whitby and not the member for regeneration-lite.
But before anyone could discover the contents of the package, the briefing was abruptly cancelled.
Bemused press officers revealed Coun Summerfield had changed his mind. More work was required on the package and an announcement would be made in due course. But the white smoke is yet to go up and Neville is yet to speak.
Solihull Council, meanwhile, is claiming to be leading the way in the West Midlands with its nine-point economic rescue package.
Good grief. Birmingham being beaten by Solihull. Red faces all round.
The latest explanation is Neville has decided to drip-feed the important measures rather than risk too much excitement with a big bang approach.
At this rate, the recession will be over before he gets around to it.
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Mike Whitby is running on high octane in Beijing, where he has been selling the delights of Birmingham to developers.
As is usual on these occasions, the city council leader managed to get just a little carried away.
Announcing the Big City Plan – a document outlining proposed “transformational” regeneration projects over 15 years – Whitby appeared to give his audience the impression he, personally, was responsible for a £6 billion “public infrastructure programme”.
Quite apart from a question mark over the accuracy of the figure – it presumably includes projects like Arena Central and Snowhill, susceptible to the recession – it was a wee bit naughty of Whitby to take all the credit for the New Street Gateway, which wouldn’t have been approved without hard work by Network Rail, Advantage West Midlands and Liam Byrne.
And while the best salesmen are no strangers to hyperbole, it is stretching the imagination to suppose, as Coun Whitby does, these projects will have “world-wide impact”. Railway stations and office blocks are functional.
And as for the “announcement” of two new townships to the east and west of the city centre, this bears an astonishing similarity to a proposal for eco-towns launched by the council more than a year ago.
I am assured there is no truth in the rumour that these two new settlements are to be called Mikestown and Whitbyville.
