Our two year research into the #66 region has told us that the region is not balanced.
Thankfully balance is easily achieved by small interventions and adjustments.
Successful places need to be in balance. There is no point in having the best housing if only a certain demographic can afford to live in it, there is no point in just having lots of jobs if the place is dull (like an oil rig), there is no point in having just fantastic scenery if the young are bored by the lack of variety of activity and too many of them leave and don't come back.
If a place is to be successful, healthy, and prosperous it must be culturally rich.
For places to be stand-out and appeal to a broad demographic they must also have - and be seen to have - new and aspirant things. Bright, go ahead, things like festivals and activities that encompass both the spectacular, the contemporary and outstanding such as MIMA and Locomotion, and the rooted and progressive such as the Festival of Thrift, Stockton International Riverside Festival (SIRF), Winter Droving and Kendal Calling.
“We need to develop the digital talent of the future, this is the biggest barrier for growth for businesses.”
The desire to be digital is the desire to be up to date. The #66 region won’t achieve this desire without investment in our children and young people’s cultural capital.
We need to ensure that our children in the #66 region have high aspirations so that the 10 year old girl in west coast Cumbria or the 12 year old boy in rural Pennines can believe they can and gain the skills they need to become a digital animator, programmer, entrepreneur or digital leader.
The #66 is already an extraordinarily green place with its natural assets in both landscape and seascape.
If we disregard the desire to improve our environment, to live in more sustainable ways, to eat better and to live better on a local and global scale we may as well forget any desire to meet the needs of the young and ensure that we are - and are seen to be - a leader in innovative thinking and living
The #66 purpose is to support the development of a sustainable tourism economy in places that recognise they need to innovate and build confidence if they are to be viable and future-proof, places that are not on the mainstream tourism map, but that can be relatively easily reached and explored.
Issues of connectivity were raised over and over again. Affordable and sustainable transport is a key element to making a place liveable and visitable, allowing a flow of people across the region and for example between the polycentric nature of Tees Valley and connections between rural Cumbria and it’s towns and city of Carlisle.
There are thriving community and voluntary run cultural / heritage / social / environmental initiatives across the #66 region
If we disregard the desire to improve our environment, to live in more sustainable ways, to eat better and to live better on a local and global scale we may as well forget any desire to meet the needs of the young and ensure that we are - and are seen to be - a leader in innovative thinking and living
We must ensure that communities are well served and involved as collaborators, coauthors and co-designers in the creation and delivery of new programmes of activity in their locality.
Conclusion
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