A global perspective on city's attractions

Oct 12 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal

FROM university in the US to bringing an international flavour to Newcastle and Gateshead, Karen Dent meets 1NG boss Jim McIntyre and hears about his vision for both sides of the Tyne.

LOOKING beyond his immediate environment has always driven Jim McIntyre. The Glasgow-born chief executive of 1NG – the NewcastleGateshead City Development Company – went to university in the US and spent the first part of his career working in developing countries.

Now he’s aiming to use that experience to help the North East become more outward-looking and achieve the potential he says he can see on both banks of the Tyne.

A scholarship took McIntyre to the University of Athens in Georgia to study economics following his first degree in his native Glasgow.

“I think early on it’s quite important, from my point of view anyway, to try to get a perspective,” he says.

“If you grow up in an area – I guess in the west of Scotland and the North East of England you can get quite a parochial attitude if you don’t see outside the region, see outside the country and I think it did that for me.

“I worked for Ewbank Preece in management consultancy which was largely Asia, Africa, the Middle East, so I was quite keen from an early age really just to be doing things outside of the country I grew up in.

“I think that was important for me to get a perspective. A perspective is the most important thing it gives you – to view how other parts of the world might view you.

“We all have our own views of what America’s like and what Africa’s like, but actually it’s probably just as important to understand what they think you’re like.”

He’s brought that philosophy to the North East and is now nine months into the job at 1NG – a company working with Newcastle and Gateshead councils, One North East and the private sector to lead the way on regeneration, development and investment projects on either side of the river.

McIntyre was headhunted for the 1NG role while chief executive of property developer Gladedale Ventures – but admits he was initially reluctant.

“I didn’t want to come at first – being honest about it – I said no a couple of times and eventually I agreed to meet with Charlie [former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer] in London. I don’t mean I was dragged here, but it wasn’t really on my agenda.

“But the more I thought about the next three or four years and what I was doing, and the fact that I’d been there four or five years and I’d delivered a huge amount, and the opportunity to do something different, it became at least worth a discussion.

“And then, when you have the discussion, it gets kind of interesting, and then it becomes a little bit more compelling; and I kind of fancied doing something in a new territory.”

McIntyre’s family are based an hour’s train journey away in Scotland and he splits his time between commuting and staying in his flat in Gosforth.

Although the family enjoy spending time in north Northumberland, Newcastle and Gateshead were pretty new to McIntyre. “I didn’t know Newcastle and I certainly didn’t know Gateshead. I had been here – in fact a long time ago when the Urban Development Corporation was doing the Quayside I came down,” he says.

“I did a project with Terry Farrell in Edinburgh, and Terry was the master planner on the Quayside and we did a study project to see what was happening in Newcastle.

“They had already built out a fair bit of the Quayside but I hadn’t seen the Sage, which was fantastic.

“I’d seen many pictures of it because of course Fosters were the architects on Quartermile [in Edinburgh] so I knew of the project and I’d seen a lot of the imagery, but it’s quite a landmark.”

With a view across the Tyne to die for from his office and a large aerial photograph of the river and its Quayside developments on the wall, McIntyre is now very familiar with the area.

His first big job was to work on the One Plan – the economic masterplan for NewcastleGateshead.

“It’s a big-picture exercise so that’s about saying what are the things that are going to determine the future competitiveness of NewcastleGatehead, so how is this place going to earn its living and what kind of place is it going to be?” he said.

Creating a knowledge-driven economy, boosting the skills of people based here, along with creating great city centres and taking advantage of opportunities offered by the low-carbon economy are at the heart of that vision. McIntyre has two projects at the top of his agenda – Science Central on the old brewery site and developing Gateshead Quays – which he says are not just about creating new buildings.

“Those two projects in themselves I think of not in physical terms alone, but in terms of what we deliver economically and what they’re intended to do, can make a significant difference to this place and what this combined city could become,” he said.

“We have to ensure that this company doesn’t become a planning body, some kind of strategic thinktank but rather becomes a body that delivers the aspirations of the partners.

“In other words, develop these sites with the market – and obviously we don’t use public money to develop the entire city, but I think our role here is to try to lever as much private sector investment on the back of public sector investment that we make.”