The Infrastructure Interest Group covers a broad spectrum of activity embracing transport, broadband and (initially at least) that sector of the property market, which deals with offices. The intention is to broaden the latter to include other places of work, particularly factory and warehouse accommodation.
Together with Mike Taylor and Jon Enever tasks currently in hand include understanding the superfast broadband roll out, which has been widely publicised in general terms but seems to be lacking in detail at a local level.
Other cities do appear to be stealing a bit of a march on Nottingham – the initiative taken by Northamptonshire County Council to “persuade” the private sector to invest in a specific part of the county is a fantastic initiative. We are aware of some early stage work being undertaken by Nottingham City Council, which when it materialises will hopefully alleviate the difficulty businesses in particular in the city centre face in securing reliable fast broadband connectivity.
We all know of the disruption caused by the current works to lay the two extra tramlines, widen the A453 and take out roundabouts on the outer ring road. What does not seem to be “advertised” quite so well is the City Council’s recently launched ‘car club’. This followed the seemingly very quiet launch of Nottingham’s version of the ‘Boris Bike’.
The City however isn’t standing still. There is discussion about additional routes for the tram network and we understand that further discussions have been held over the potential for a fourth River Trent bridge crossing to the east in Gedling.
National uncertainty about HS2 doesn’t help in the planning of the transport infrastructure work, but if it goes ahead some thought may be needed especially in relation to connecting the proposed station at Toton to existing rail/tram links.
On the property front we seem to have a good handle on the relevant data for the market relating to office premises. The group comprising the Office Agents Forum have agreed to extend the information gathering to embrace factory and industrial property. It is hoped that the baseline data together with take up rates for the current year will be available for public consumption during the early part of 2015.
The depth and breadth of the Infrastructure Interest Group means that we can only do little bits. Concentrating on immediate issues appears to be the way forward!