IF Boost Your Region Forum
Intelligence Forums’ “Boost Your Region” lunchtime meeting (with some members joining virtually) on 22 March 2022 was hosted by Tom Bolster, a partner who specialises in competition disputes, at law firm Hausfeld. Tomaso Forni a second year student at Lancaster University introduced our two speakers, and the meeting was chaired by Ed Goodchild.
First to speak was David Harland, who joined The Eden Project in 2013 as Finance Director, and has become the first CEO of Eden Projects International Ltd., with a mission to develop new programmes and projects across the globe.
He told us of Cornwall's rich heritage in tin, lead, and China Clay mining and of the scars that it left on both landscape and community. Once the pits were closed those who grew up in many former Cornish mining towns and villages left the area for good when they left school. This contributed to the area becoming one of economic deprivation.
One gash on the landscape was English China Clay's (ECC) exhausted, steep-sided clay pit, 60 metres deep, with no soil, and 15 metres below the water table. In the late 1990’s the remarkable vision of Sir Tim Smith, an anthropologist, archaeologist and former rock musician, gave birth to The Eden Project (Eden), which breathed life into ECC’s scar on the landscape and the local economy. Eden acquired the pit and brought to it a huge diversity of everyday plants, grown in soil made from ‘waste’ materials, watered by the rain, and cultivated in giant conservatories and buildings that drew inspiration from nature.
It was 21 years ago that Eden procured lottery funding, RDA and EU grants and commercial loans to invest in the project, and now it employs 360 staff, has given another 150 people the opportunity to volunteer and has attracted more than 18 million visitors. 80% of its procurement is made locally, and the project has inspired an economic renaissance, which has generated £20m for every £1 invested.
The project, David says, exemplifies what can happen when you "dare to dream". Eden tells stories about the natural world better than anyone else in the world, and reminds people that we are notapartfrom the natural world but actually apartof it. Eden now has projects in Dubai, Derry (Londonderry), Costa Rica, Dundee, Australia and New Zealand and Columbia. It also has a site in Qingdao, China due to open in 2023 and one,Eden Project North, due to open in Morecambe Bay in 2024.
David handed the baton to Professor Dame Sue Black, Baroness Black of Strome DBE, FBA, FRSE, FRCP, and FRAI, a Scottish forensic anthropologist, anatomist and academic, the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Engagement at Lancaster University and current President of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Professor Black told us that she has been a “passenger” on the Morecambe Bay Eden Project North “bus” since 2018. The town, she told us, is mostly known for the failed “Blobbyland” theme park and the deaths of the Chinese cockle pickers who tragically drowned in the fast rising tide and asked "why would anyone want to go to Morecambe, a long forgotten holiday spot long past its heyday".
Morecambe’s inhabitants once earned a subsistence living from whelks, muscles and cockles, but the advent of railways, changed all that. That new accessibility raised its prosperity as it was recognised that being by the seaside was good for one's health. With the motto ‘Beauty Surrounds and Health Abounds’, the town grew quickly from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century. Sadly it lost its shine when people started to go on holiday abroad, and little has been done in the way of regeneration since . Morecambe has now become “the town at the end of the line”.
Morecambe Bay itself, she said, is stunning, but while you can look west to the magic of sunset over the sea, you turn your back on a long forgotten town with some of the highest levels of social deprivation in the country. Life expectancy in the town is 10 years less than average and 25% of its people rely on food banks, and kids grow up with three generations of relations who have lived on benefits.
In the 1980's the answer to "what shall we do with Morecambe?" was the creation of a "Crinkley Bottom" (better known as Blobbyland) theme park. This opened in July 1994 but closed 13 weeks later. The local council was found guilty of acting unlawfully over the affair, which was a huge let-down for Morecambe. Disappointment in town was palpable.
The town is only 10 minutes from Lancaster and, with good road and rail links, within two hours of a catchment area of 10.1 million people in Manchester. It already has an art deco hotel and Winter Gardens as well as the statue of Eric Morecambe ….. so why did the theme park fail?
Simply bringing in a tourist attraction to town is not enough, she said. There has to be a recognition that any such attraction must do something with Morecambe not to Morecambe. It must “talk about the place”, engage with local people, and retain those in the area through a kindred spirit.
It is unacceptable, Professor Black told us to have a university in an area in which there are such extraordinary levels of deprivation. Lancaster University as a civic university has, she believes, a responsibility towards the town for "Levelling Out" (rather than “Levelling Up").
To this end the University has been working together with Eden to create a new Eden Project North (EPN), which will combine indoor and outdoor experiences, and connect people with the natural environment of Morecambe Bay. EPN will have far-reaching environmental, social and economic ambitions, and will be a visitor attraction that is sustainable and transformative, with large indoor environments, housed within iconic pavilions, at its heart. It will build on the Eden Cornwall’s particular mix of entertainment and education, leaving visitors with lasting memories as well as driving positive behavioural change.
The University has brought together the City and the County councils, to secure land and planning permission for EPN which it is hoped will open in 2024. But it has now reached a critical juncture and needs financing. While it has, so far, secured £50m of the £125m needed, it is now asking the government to provide £70m through the "Levelling Up" fund.
Competition for such funding within the Northwest is very tough, but she believes that like the Eden in Cornwall, Morecambe’s EPN can be the catalyst for many other businesses to be established in the local economy. Already the National Cyber force has committed to make a £5 billion investment in the area. Others, Professor Black believes, will follow and in addition to creating jobs will be catalysts for increased public pride which will persuade people not to leave the area.
Professor Black also described the Morecambe Bay Curriculum (MBC), which underpins EPN’s engagement with the local community. The first pilot projects were launched in September 2020, and local stories that connect people to their place are being used as a vehicle to reimagine future sustainable solutions for living in Morecambe Bay. MBC focuses on the health and wellbeing of the ecosystem, and opportunities for future sustainable living, learning and working in EPN as well as working within its supply chain. Children and young people will participate in environmental projects that are designed to interrogate environmental challenges and seek to provide sustainable solutions. Young people will also engage in employment internships through an Employer Gateway that focuses on the key challenges and opportunities for the Bay. These experiences will be evidenced in an Eden MBC Passport.
Professor Black hopes that EPN and MBC will inspire a generation of young people and their parents to change the dreadful cycle of living on benefits and in deprivation.
Eden, Cornwall is 21 years old, and she hopes that MBC will see local generations commit to the local environment in such a way that EPN will one day look back on 50 years of operation.