SPATIAL PLAN FOR THE HUMBER INTRODUCTION The Humber has powered the UK economy for decades, bringing everything from food to freight, coal to cars, passengers to petroleum. The Humber is one of the UK's most important assets. Today, businesses continue to invest and thrive in the Humber because of our strategic UK coastal location and global connectivity – from marine engineering and logistics companies, to chemicals and food manufacturers and it provides the biggest opportunity for growth through renewable energy. The focus of the Humber Local Economic Partnership and its constituent members is firmly on realising the potential of the Humber to power both our regional and UK economies. Our biggest opportunities for growth lie in ports & logistics, renewable energy and chemicals. The Humber Estuary is the “UK’s Energy Estuary”. We are also supporting growth in existing businesses, including healthcare, food, digital and engineering & manufacturing. To make sure that we grasp these great opportunities, we need to put in place the right conditions for growth. This partly involves clearly setting out our offer along with our priorities for growth and the spatial solutions to deliver them. The purpose of the Humber Spatial Plan is to draw together the key spatial priorities across the Humber which will facilitate this ambition alongside other strategically significant forms of development such as new housing and key environmental assets and challenges. The Plan reflects wider growth ambitions as set out in the recently published 'One North: A proposition for an interconnected North' document. This highlights the tremendous economic opportunities which could be achieved in the north of England through a series of transformational transport investment projects including improvements to both road and rail and involving both passenger and freight movement. The ambition is to promote the North as 'a destination of choice and a dynamic counterweight and complement to the London and south east economy'. The Humber has a key role to play in this ambition and the investment and development priorities set out in this Plan will go a long way to ensuring that this becomes a reality. THE HUMBER The Humber occupies a key position on UK’s east coast, halfway between London and Edinburgh. Made up of the East Diagram 1: The Humber’s Strategic Location Riding of Yorkshire, Hull, North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire, it covers a total of 351,926 hectares (or 1,359 sq miles) and is home to 921,190 people1. The area has a unique setting, dominated by the Humber Estuary and it is river systems and framed by a Heritage Coastline to the east, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (the Lincolnshire Wolds) to the south, the Yorkshire Wolds and North York Moors to the north, as well as the major population centres of South and West Yorkshire to the west. The city of Kingston upon Hull is our largest urban area, with a population of 257,200 which rises to over 300,000 when combined with the adjoining settlements in the East Riding. Our other major towns include the ports of Grimsby and Immingham, the “Industrial Garden Town” of Scunthorpe, Goole – the UK’s most inland port, and the resort towns of Bridlington and Cleethorpes. Our rural areas are well served by a range of attractive and historic market towns like Beverley, Barton upon Humber, Brigg, Driffield and Market Weighton. A large number of smaller towns, villages and hamlets are scattered across the area. The Humber is an outward looking region. We are only 200 miles and 12 hours sailing time from mainland Europe, and are part of one of Europe’s major transport corridors linking the west coast of Ireland, northern England, Scandinavia, the Baltic and Russia. 1 2012 Mid Year Population Estimates, Office for National Statistics As well as having close links with Europe and the rest of UK, the Humber also enjoys strong ties with our neighbours. Three of the four local authorities are members of other Local Enterprise Partnerships (East Riding of Yorkshire is part of the York, North Yorkshire & East Riding LEP whilst North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire are members of the Greater Lincolnshire LEP). THE AMBITION & THE VISION The Humber Local Enterprise Partnership’s key focus is to realise the potential of the Humber Estuary to power the regional and national economies, and in particular promote the Humber Estuary as the UK’s Energy Estuary. The Humber Strategy Economic Plan states that: The ambition is to maximise the potential offered by the Humber Estuary, leading the Humber to become a renowned national and international centre for renewable energy and an area whose economy is resilient and competitive. We will continue to develop our strengths in key sectors, supporting our businesses to grow and helping our residents to access the opportunities they need to lead prosperous and rewarding lives. The vision for 2020 Economy Economy By 2020, the Humber will have a thriving renewables sector, with ambitious capital schemes well underway and a growing reputation for excellence and expertise. Many thousands of jobs will have been created, driven by this major growth in renewables alongside the further strengthening of our other key sectors. Skills By 2020, we will have a skills system that is better aligned with the current and future needs of our economy. The proportion of our working age population with no qualifications will have decreased significantly and we will have observed another period of above average growth in higher level skills. Place Place By 2020, our visitor economy will be stronger than ever, civic pride will have risen and a stronger sense of ambition and self-confidence will be evident across the LEP area. The area will be benefiting from the legacy impacts of Hull: UK City of Culture 2017, our infrastructure and housing offer will have progressed considerably and we will be adequately resourced to deal effectively with issues of flooding and coastal erosion. Strategic development sites, including Enterprise Zones, will be thriving locations for economic growth. THE PLAN The Hull & Humber City Deal agreed in 2013 commits the Humber LEP and the four local authorities to produce a 25 year spatial plan that will optimise the Humber Estuary, its immediate hinterland and its connective infrastructure. The plan will have a strong focus on helping to deliver major sites to capitalise on the few remaining deep-water locations, identifying the best locations for jetties to maximise such opportunities and supporting the re-use of underused dockland locations and decayed urban docklands to meet new industry demands (in particular, offshore wind and urban regeneration on waterside locations). It builds on the priorities set out the Humber’s Strategic Economic Plan and Infrastructure Delivery Plan and provides a single point of reference for potential investors and developers as to the overall strategic planning framework in the Humber i.e. the focus and scale of development proposed having regard to environmental considerations such as flood risk and nature conservation designations. It also usefully flags up the major infrastructure and other investment priorities which are intended to overcome identified barriers with a view to facilitating growth. This means we set out details of the major development sites, while an accompanying mitigation/compensation plan will outline up front environmental constraints to provide better information and time savings for developers. The Plan is not a statutory document, but serves to bring together the key spatial priorities that will help to realise LEP ambition for the area. It is important that potential developers / investors refer to the existing and emerging Local Plans for each of the respective Local Authorities (contact details provided below) OUR OFFER The Humber offers the best opportunity in the country to take advantage of the growing off-shore renewables industry. The largest Enterprise Zone in the UK is geared towards expanding this key sector. In addition to this, the area already has a thriving economy and business base across a range of different sectors. These sectors are continuing to invest in the area and create jobs. Another key element of the Humber’s offer is our quality of life and living environment. THE HUMBER ECONOMY The Humber is home to 32,500 businesses. Our GVA is £14 billion per annum. The business base is characterised by small companies. Just over 80% of the Humber’s businesses have fewer than 10 employees (the vast majority of which have fewer than 5) and 96% have fewer than 50. This is similar to the profile across England as a whole. Alongside this micro- economy are some major multi-national enterprises such as Smith and Nephew, Associated British Ports (ABP), BP Chemicals, Reckitt Benckiser (which has made Hull the home for its largest R&D facility) and Tata Steel. Business start-up rates in the Humber – a measure of entrepreneurial activity – is relatively high and survival rates are broadly in line with the national average. At a local authority level, however, the picture varies considerably, with survival rates (and especially 4-5 year survival rates) notably lower in Hull and North Lincolnshire In the last year alone, investments as diverse as Japanese chemicals company Nippon Gohsei making its second big investment, Crown Paints opening a logistics hub to deliver paint to clients around the world and Morrison’s investing in new operations for seafood products have taken place in the area. The Humber stands on the brink of an unprecedented level of investment in offshore wind capacity. Over the period to 2030, up to 20GW of additional capacity will be installed in the southern North Sea across the major Round 3 development sites at Dogger Bank, Hornsea and East Anglia.