Bricks and mortar aren't necessarily the building blocks of regeneration. However, DigitalCity believes it offers businesses more than just a Middlesbrough office. John Hill learns about the strategy behind the digital regeneration of the Tees Valley.
BUILDINGS are great for stopping Mother Nature making all of our cool stuff damp, but people do tend to get massively over-excited about their importance.
The world’s great football stadiums may look lovely in aerial shots, but it’s the fans that fill it on match days that forge its atmosphere. And those fans wouldn’t turn up in droves if all they had to watch was an old man counting bottle caps in the centre circle.
The principle is the same with regeneration. Exciting businesses need a roof over their heads, but recent history is littered with tales of expensive structures that were built to attract enterprise and culture, and only ended up attracting dust.
DigitalCity Business director Mark Elliott says: “There often been a belief in regeneration that if you build it they will come, and they won’t.
“People and places are like hardware and software. They won’t work by themselves, but if you put them together with the right dynamic you get results.
“We’re doing OK so far, but successful clusters take decades to develop. People talk about Silicon Valley now, but that was formed in the Second World War.”
Elliott‘s background was largely in film-making and commercials when he took the job of developing a strategy for a digital hub in the Tees Valley back in 2003. The flagship Middlesbrough town centre building known as Boho One opened in 2009, but Elliott says there was more to the strategy than just constructing an office block and waiting for it to fill with companies.
Elliott says: “The building only came after five years of forging a cluster and talking to people. The original plan we drew up and tore up was to build a development on a business park. The problem was that creative people would rather chew off their own arm than go into a business park.
“We decided we wanted a Middlesbrough version of Soho, which of course became the Boho. If you put just one building up, all you’re doing is creating a specialised ghetto. We want a creative and digital quarter that brings life into the town.
“Soho is one of the greatest creative quarters in the world, but its power isn’t in the equipment on offer, or the buildings. It’s in the pubs and cafes where people meet and talk about ideas and come up with new businesses.
The DigitalCity initiative was launched by Middlesbrough Council and Teesside University, and recently received a £1.7m funding injection from the European Regional Development Fund Competitiveness Programme 2007-13, One North East and Middlesbrough Council. It aims to be self-sustaining within five years, and Elliott says the initiative has a number of novel strategies for achieving this which he is keeping close to his chest.
DigitalCity Business itself aims to create 20 new firms by March 2012, and develop 20 more into high-growth businesses. It also plans to boost turnover by 20% by 2015, increase international trade by 75% and create 160 jobs, as well as support 424 firms, bring at least six new businesses to the region and develop the skills of at least 80 people.
“What does a city have?”, asks Elliott. “It has business support, but also community elements, culture and routes to market. We’ve spent seven years building a complete package so we can tell companies we can support them on their way from garage to global.
“When we first set up our mission, a cluster meant a building and a bit of business support. Our mission has always been to create a vibrant and self-sustaining supercluster for the digital and creative industries.
“Boho One is a building for accelerating companies. Next we’re getting live/work units next door. We want a whole area to help people take important steps in business.”