Here Lord Hutton and Professor Janet Dwyer highlight the importance of ensuring that growth policy doesn’t neglect coastal and rural areas like Cornwall or other places that are sometimes seen as peripheral. The piece emphasises that we must make sure growth is for all but also that there are significant growth opportunities in places like Cornwall as well as good practice and lessons that can be learned by other regions.
Good Growth in a rural economy – the experience and potential of Cornwall
In a relative short timeframe, the national policy pendulum has swung from a focus on levelling up to a focus on driving national growth through investment into the UK’s second cities. It is argued that in order to unlock national growth, we must concentrate investment into the places that will deliver the biggest return and that these places are the UK’s large cities outside of London.
It is important to understand what this shift in policy focus means for rural, coastal and other peripheral areas of the UK, and for our ability to deliver good growth for all.
Cornwall has been a test bed for levelling up policy, formerly widely known as cohesion policy. The aim of these policies is to ensure support for areas that are disadvantaged when national productivity improvements are pursued through centralised approaches. Investments are made in areas that are trailing national rates of productivity and growth in order to unlock the unique opportunities that exist in these areas, thereby creating a more equitable participation in prosperity across the country.
Cornwall has been a recipient of EU structural funds as a less-developed region for several decades, and investment more recently through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund at a level higher per capita than any other area in England outside of London. Cornwall is an excellent example of why this type of funding works on two fronts. Firstly, this investment has seen Cornwall catching up economically, with our growth rates outpacing the UK average and significantly surpassing comparator areas. While recognising that Cornwall still has a long way to go, it is important to acknowledge and celebrate this achievement.
Secondly, it has enabled Cornwall to confidently invest in assets and businesses which now place us uniquely to contribute and drive forward crucial national priorities:
• Clean energy – Cornwall, together with other rural areas of the UK, has significant renewable energy assets and a stronger sector specialism in clean firms than even London. This gives us a clear role to play in delivering the UK ambition to become a Clean Energy Superpower. Cornwall can lead the UK’s renewable energy revolution by harnessing our exceptional natural resources including the UK’s richest solar resource, geothermal potential linked to hard rock, Europe’s most favourable wind climate, and extensive coastline and deep waters in the Celtic Sea.
• Defence, economic security and resilience – The global context for the UK economy has changed significantly and it is no longer possible to be indifferent or naive about security and resilience. Cornwall makes a direct contribution to the UK Defence sector in space, data and drone capabilities and our marine and manufacturing assets. We also have a crucial role to play in ensuring UK economic security and resilience through the supply of renewable energy from reliable UK sources, critical minerals to safeguard the UK’s transition to a green economy, and a home-grown supply of food from Cornwall’s farmers, fishers and food processors.
The investment from cohesion and levelling up programmes has enabled Cornwall to invest in sectors and assets which now present a direct, strategically important and positive opportunity for the national economy.
Research by the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE) in 2021 and 2023 has shown that rural areas have a distinctive and vital role to play in pioneering and driving growth particularly in green technologies and net-zero transition. The business innovators and networks found in Cornwall exemplify the special characteristics of rural entrepreneurship in facilitating inclusive and resilient approaches which ensure that the benefits of new technologies and market development make a real difference to quality of life across the country, serving both rural and urban households and communities.
A final lesson to highlight is that Cornwall’s particular geography and its challenges as a small, rural, peripheral economy surrounded on three sides by sea, requires us to put good growth at the centre of what we do: growth that provides decent jobs and homes for residents, that protects our national environment and supports our transition to net zero.
In a place such as Cornwall, good growth is not simply a ‘nice to have’, but an essential part of sustaining a healthy economy, going forward. Our population is significantly older than the UK average with a labour force set to shrink year on year from 2025 onwards. Ensuring Cornwall is an inclusive economy that people with skills and competences want to participate in, is essential to maximise the future labour pool for our businesses and employers.
Many jobs, including in the tourism and agri-food sector, are dependent on the health of the natural environment and our coastal geography is at heightened risks linked to changes in climate. Ensuring that growth is clean and green is central to our vision for the economy. Balancing the demands of competing uses – be it solar panels, housing development or agricultural diversification and added value – is not easy, but facing these issues head on, through a partnership approach, has given us vital experience in getting the balance right, including for the next generations.
Through the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Good Growth programme we have invested Shared Prosperity Fund locally with a clear and ambitious commitment to good growth. All 143 funded projects have been asked to contribute towards Good Growth Principles including a clean and green economy, supporting local jobs and business activity, and ensuring equality and inclusion. This is already having a significant impact including more than £24 million invested into net-zero and decarbonisation. As part of our newly adopted Good Growth Plan, Cornwall is taking forward a Good Business Charter to support local businesses to play their role as inclusive employers within the transition to a green and clean economy.
NICRE’s research has highlighted how multi-sectoral innovation clusters based on economies of scope, and socially-oriented enterprises, are notable features of the modern rural business landscape, and Cornwall offers highly successful examples of both. This makes the County well-placed to play a leading role in enabling more rapid sustainability and climate transitions, e.g. through critical minerals supply, renewable and alternative energy generation, space tech and communications, and innovative marine- and agri-technologies for sustainable food and transportation.
To sum up, the Cornwall experience is that a focus on optimising national growth must sit alongside strong policies to invest in ‘leading edge’ rural, coastal and peripheral areas. We should not think of levelling up policy on the one hand, and a national growth policy aimed at delivering ‘best bang for your buck’ through concentrated efforts in urban centres on the other hand, as a binary choice. These policies should be viewed as two equally important sides of the same coin that must co-develop in synergy.
About the authors
Lord Hutton is the Chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Economic Forum. He was elected to Parliament in 1992 and served as the MP for Barrow and Furness until 2010. He served in the Cabinet under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as Work and Pensions Secretary, Business Secretary and Defence Secretary.
Janet Dwyer is Co-Director of NICRE, CCRI, University of Gloucestershire. She is a Professor and an internationally-recognised academic with over 30 years’ experience in applied rural research, with expertise in the fields of sustainable rural development, agricultural and environmental policy at UK and EU levels.
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