Looking back on 2021, what have been the key highlights for the Golden Valley Development?
The first highlight was coming out of the lockdown earlier this year. In March 2020, as we went into the first lockdown, we were at the point of launching our search for a development partner and due to the changing circumstances, there was uncertainty about what would happen. Instead, we adapted our plans and launched ‘virtually’ drawing on a promotional video and other digital material via social media channels. At the time this was totally untested in the development market.
This proved to be a great success; where other schemes had been put on hold, we were getting a lot of positive attention for driving this exciting project forward at a very difficult economic time. Throughout this whole year, we have worked hard and got to the point where we have a development partner on board as well as strengthening our commercial offer to the market. This has been helped with the ‘innovation campus’ theme which is based on a vision that had homes and over 2 million square feet of tech led-employment at its core.
The key to this is the concept of a pioneering campus focused around bringing great minds together to collaborate and innovate. Through the Golden Valley Development, we will create the ideal location to grow the defence of our critical national infrastructure. It will also be the home of innovation and creativity, helping us to find solutions and create products that will allow us to retain our position as global leaders in the cyber and emerging tech sector.
What have been the biggest achievements and how has this benefitted Gloucestershire and the wider area?
Over the last year, the Golden Valley Development has been recognised as an exciting and innovative project across the region and beyond. We have been working with the Western Gateway, as it is now clear that the project will be a major player in South West England. However, it is not just about the Golden Valley Development and Cheltenham; it is much bigger than that.
That recognition took a huge step forward this month with the launch of the National Cyber Strategy, with the Rt Hon Stephen Barclay MP (the Cabinet Office Minister) setting out how the UK will be the world’s safest place to live and do online business. Gloucestershire is the location to drive a major part of this agenda forward, being home to the transformational National Cyber Security Centre. The Government’s increasing support for the Golden Valley Development project is key to the mission of delivering cyber and emerging tech innovation. Our work is at the heart of this critically important national strategy.
We can also look at the work that CyNam, Cheltenham’s cyber cluster, has been involved in this year. They are the physical representation of what is happening here, with over 1,000 members from across the ecosystem and every event they host becomes bigger and more exciting, drawing in hundreds of people watching worldwide. They have been working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and other Government departments, as well as collaborating with other regions through the national Cyber Cluster Collaboration (UKC3).
People are becoming more aware of the ecosystem here, including what businesses are doing and how that can benefit everyone. Earlier this month, around 15 Cheltenham cyber start-ups received funding to attend Slush 2021 in Helsinki. At the event, there was great excitement about what was going on in Cheltenham and the region as a whole. Over recent years, we have been gaining visibility with the Golden Valley Development being recognised nationally and internationally and that is a real achievement for Gloucestershire.
Have the effects of COVID-19 created more obstacles or opportunities for the project?
Despite the backdrop of something that has brought real challenges to many of our lives, we have been able to create opportunities and strengthen our approach. Our search for a Development Partner took place virtually which helped us to reduce the project’s carbon footprint and expenses. It was also far more efficient from a productivity point of view and we managed to retain more people because of that. The idea that multi-disciplinary teams need to travel across the UK to have a 2-hour meeting really does not make much sense anymore.
There has also been more awareness of the online threats facing our country and our mission is to bring everything together with the right people and education to combat this. Ultimately, COVID has made cyber a higher priority as more people become reliant on these forms of communication and infrastructure in their day-to-day lives.
The pandemic has had a devastating impact on many people across the world, however, I believe we have managed to turn it into an opportunity to create a greener, more sustainable development that sets a new approach to promoting collaborative and pioneering work.
This year, the project has emphasised the importance of including the local community. What has the Development been doing to make sure this becomes a reality?
Community engagement has been a particularly challenging issue for us because in the pre-pandemic times you could reach out and speak to people in person, work with community engagement specialists to meet with a diverse range of groups and make presentations to capture the feelings and views. We want to ensure that we have as many channels open as possible so that people feel involved and heard, but this is not an easy task in such testing times.
It was particularly difficult to reach people who do not have access to digital media. We created the GV Magazine for this reason, as a way to inform the community of what was going on and to begin that public engagement. We received positive feedback about the quality of what has been published and we are trying to build upon that as we head into the next 12 months.
What growth have we seen in Gloucestershire’s cyber sector in 2021?
Though we do not currently have figures for 2021, when we conducted the Hatch Regeneris report last year, the growth rate in Cheltenham and Gloucestershire was well above the national average and this has likely continued this year. There is a real belief and acceptance that Cheltenham and Gloucestershire are leaders in this sector and that it is the place to be. These are truly powerful statistics, showing Cheltenham as having the greatest concentration of cyber & digital businesses in the UK outside of London. With the launch of the National Cyber Strategy, as part of the wider levelling-up agenda, Cheltenham’s importance is going to become even stronger.
Hub8, including Bruce Gregory and his team, have grown their initiative to get many organisations to come together and do great things. The whole approach is changing with colleagues at GCHQ and NCSC becoming more confident about collaborating and becoming more visible. That was part of the bid for Hub8 Gloucestershire College and the upcoming Minster Exchange, which will help this sector to flourish further, drawing in further funding to Cheltenham. The college is adjacent to some of the most deprived wards in Gloucestershire and with tech giants moving to the area, it will provide educational opportunities for apprenticeships and work placement schemes. I think there is something very inspiring about that.
For you, a personal highlight must have been achieving second place in the South West Business Insider’s ‘Property Powerlist’. How does it feel to receive this sort of recognition for the project?
I was a bit surprised as someone sent it to me and said, “Have you seen this? You are number two!” It is great recognition of the Golden Valley Development project and our fast-growing momentum. Sometimes as the figurehead of a project, you get the recognition; but for me it is more about the wider team who are working on this and the great tenacity everyone has. We have managed to assemble a strong team who are experts in their fields, such as Amanda Keane, David Oakhill, Paul Carten, Paul Minnis, Nick Sturge and Reid Derby to name just a few.
As a relatively small council – Cheltenham’s administration has shown great leadership in driving this project forward, purchasing the land, financing the programme and maintaining the vision of making Cheltenham the Cyber Capital of the UK. Particularly as the impact stretches much wider. There are a whole host of other partners and stakeholders who have been working hard to drive this forward, in particular Alex Chalk our local MP, the County Council, Gloucestershire Local Enterprise Partnership and Tewkesbury Borough Council to name just a few. It is a real team effort.
There is something about the Golden Valley Development that gets people's imagination going. I cannot underestimate it; if we get the first elements right, I am confident that great things will happen and that it will be globally significant.
What will be the Golden Valley Development’s key milestone for 2022?
The key milestone will be the submission of the planning application as it will set the tone and the timeline for the project, including the plans for the innovation centre. Second to that, we will be closing out the contracts on the development partnership with HBD X Factory. Once this has been completed, people will begin to visualise our ambitious plans to make Cheltenham and Gloucestershire the UK’s cyber capital.