A framework for City-Regions - Newcastle University

A framework for 

City-Regions 

Working Paper 1 

Mapping City-Regions 

urban

A framework for City-Regions 

Working Paper 1 

Mapping City-Regions 

Office of the Deputy Prime Minster, London 2006 

Brian Robson, Robert Barr, Kitty Lymperopoulou & James Rees 

Centre for Urban Policy Studies (CUPS), Manchester University 

Michael Coombes (CURDS, Newcastle)

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 

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Contents 

Chapter 1: Introduction 1 

Chapter 2: English City-Regions based on labour and housing markets 6 

Bottom-up definitions of travel-to-work areas 8 

Top-down definitions of travel-to-work areas 16 

Polycentric patterns and networks between major cities 27 

Housing market definitions of City-Regions 32 

Conclusion 46 

Chapter 3: The Greater Bristol City-Region 47 

Introduction 47 

Economic linkages 49 

The SW aerospace sector 51 

The creative industries sector 53 

Public sector procurement 55 

Bristol Port and Bristol International Airport 57 

The housing market 63 

Service patterns 64 

Retail services 64 

Cultural and entertainment services 66 

Health services 68 

Education services and graduate destinations 69 

The governance context 70 

Conclusion 71 

Chapter 4: The Greater Manchester City-Region 74 

Economic linkages 75 

Financial and professional services 77 

The Bank of New York 80 

Creative industries 81 

Manchester Airport 82 

The housing market 85 

Service patterns 88 

Retail services 88 

Culture and entertainment 90 

Football supporters 96 

Hospital services 98 

Higher education 101 

Defining a service-based City-Region 104 

The governance context 105 

Conclusion 106 

Chapter 5: Implications 108 

City-Region definitions 108 

City-Regions and economic competitiveness 109 

Implications for economic competitiveness 110

CHAPTER 1 

Introduction 

1.1 The concept of the City-Region has a long history. It has been the basis for a wide 

variety of academic studies, not least in the central place theories of Christaller and 

Losch who saw hierarchical sets of cities nesting within each other and serving 

populations drawn from within regular hexagonal catchment areas at successively larger 

scales. More applied policy-relevant studies in England date from the early work of 

Smailes and Green in the 1940s and ‘50s and Senior (whose minority report on 

administrative boundaries in the 1960s argued for a City-Region approach) 1. 

1.2 City-Regions essentially comprise a central urban core together with the relevant 

commuter hinterland. Their conceptual underpinning is clear: City-Regions are 

essentially functional definitions of the economic but also of the social ‘reach’ of cities. 

The aim in defining them is therefore to identify the boundaries of those areas in which 

a majority of the population see the core city as ‘their’ place – in which they may work, 

shop for certain types of goods, visit for entertainment and leisure pursuits, and with 

which they identify. As with any such geometry, there is bound to be fuzziness and 

overlap at the boundaries of many City-Regions; and the degree of self-containment is 

likely to vary for different kinds of activity – whether for commuting to work, shopping, 

leisure, or whatever. 

1.3 Although successive reorganisations of local government in the last half-century have 

never embodied the geometry of City-Regions, the argument for their relevance as 

administrative or strategic entities has grown ever more powerful. The increased range 

of commuting brought about by greater car ownership and higher employment mobility 

has widened the functional area of English cities, as a result making existing local 

authority district boundaries increasingly less representative of the real functional reach 

of towns and cities. Increasingly, the scale of governance decision-making and policy 

implementation in fields such as transport, housing and physical infrastructure 

investment have become divorced from the real functional areas of towns and cities. 

Realigning the two may be a powerful means of improving the efficiency of strategic 

planning for sub-regional areas, with consequent improvements in outcomes for all 

parts of the country. 

1.4 The impulse for discussions about regional and sub-regional reform, and the apparently 

growing momentum for greater regional autonomy in the late 1990s, can be seen within 

the context of the extensive debate about the ‘re-scaling’ of institutional arrangements 

for governance, and economic activity, as a response to the challenges posed by 

economic globalisation. Briefly, the argument is that the advent of globalisation and the 

associated economic restructuring have eroded the power and scope of nation-states 

and has led to a re-invigoration of sub-national institutional arrangements operating at 

the regional and city scales. Together with the concomitant growth in powers assumed 

1 Smailes, A.E. (1947) ‘The analysis and delimitation of urban fields’, Geography, 32; Green, F.H.W.(1950) ‘Urban 

hinterlands in England and Wales’, Geographical Journal, 116; Christaller, W. (1933) Die centralen orbe in 

Suddeutschland, Jena; Losch, A. (1954) The economics of location, New Haven. For a summary see, for 

example, Berry, B.J.L. (1967) Geography of market centers and retail distribution, Prentice-Hall. 

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A framework for City-Regions: Working Paper 1 – Mapping City-Regions 

2 

by supra-national bodies such as the EU, this has led to a ‘hollowing out’ of the nationstate, 

and a new and shifting relationship between institutions up and down the localglobal 

hierarchy. A great deal of attention has been paid in the academic literature to 

the growing weight of sub-national arrangements 2. Indeed, Scott posits a constellation 

of global City-Regions – defined as cosmopolitan metropolises and their wider regions – 

as the spatial foundations of the world economy. In parallel with the emergence of 

these large metropolitan areas, there is also: 

‘embryonic consolidation of global City-Regions into definite political entities…as 

contiguous local government areas (counties, metropolitan areas, municipalities, etc.) 

club together to form spatial coalitions in search of effective bases from which to 

deal with both the threats and the opportunities of globalization. So far from being 

dissolved away as geographic entities by processes of globalization, City-Regions are 

by and large actually thriving at the present time…’ 3 

1.5 While this applies most obviously to global cities like London – and indeed fits neatly 

with London’s elected mayor’s vision for the city – there is evidence that such 

institutional coalitions already exist across the array of smaller City-Regions in England 4. 

Cities have increasingly been the locus of strategies for economic development, as 

evidenced for example by interest in city competitiveness 5; while city strategies are also 

measured in terms of their success in attracting public and private resources for 

regeneration and development 6. Cities are now ‘marketing’ themselves, with an explicit 

recognition of the reality of city-versus-city competition under globalisation. At the same 

time it is recognised that the myriad social problems of big cities must be addressed in 

tandem with economic issues: both competitiveness and cohesion 7. For example the 

Core Cities group in England has prioritised its twin goals as being to create 

competitiveness and to foster community inclusion. 

1.6 Whatever the underlying drivers of the revitalisation of sub-national institutions, a City- 

Region scale is a vital component for many of the issues that regeneration and 

economic strategies need to address. Not least is this true for strategies concerned with 

the skills base and with housing, where the geometry of labour markets and housing 

markets (which in many respects are essentially coterminous) demarcates the functional 

areas within which a growing range of planning and policy interventions can best be 

determined. It is significant, for example, that many of the RDAs have developed subregional 

strategies that are essentially proxies for large City-Region areas. The North East 

RDA, for example, devolves some 75% of its budget to four formal sub-regional 

partnerships across the region. The logic of city-based functional areas is hard to resist, 

whether or not it is translated into formal structural arrangements. 

2 Swyngedouw, E. (1997). ‘Neither global nor local: “glocalization” and the politics of scale’, in K. Cox (ed.), 

Spaces of globalization, New York: Guildford, pp.138-66; Brenner, N. (1999). ‘Globalization as 

reterritorialisation: the re-scaling of urban governance in the European Union’, Urban Studies, 36, 431-51. 

3 Scott, A. (2001). ‘Globalization and the rise of City-Regions’, European Planning Studies, 9, 813-26. 

4 SURF (2003) Evaluating urban futures: enhancing quality improving effectiveness, ODPM New Horizons Report. 

5 Porter, M.E. (1990) The competitive advantage of nations, London: Macmillan; Begg, I. (ed.) (2002) Urban 

competitiveness: policies for dynamic cities, Bristol: Policy Press. 

6 Deas, I. and Giordano, B. (2002) Locating the competitive city in England, in Begg, I. (ed.) Urban 

Competitiveness, Bristol: Policy Press. 

7 Boddy, M. (2002) ‘Linking competitiveness and cohesion’, in Begg, I. (ed.) Urban competitiveness: policies for 

dynamic cities, 33-53.


1.7 The closest current formal spatial definition of the City-Region is that based on travel-towork-areas 

(TTWAs), which are relatively self-contained internally-contiguous labour 

markets. TTWAs were the outcome of interest, from the late 1970s, in using the concept 

of the Local Labour Market Area (LLMA) to represent sub-regional functional areas. A 

central aim was that any spatial unit for research and policy-making should reflect the 

relationship between labour supply and demand within a local area: 

Thus the LLMA should ideally not only represent areas within which identifiable 

processes of labour matching were taking place, but often also tend to approximate 

other related localized economic subsystems such as local housing markets and 

shopping centre hinterlands. As a ‘locality’, then, the LLMA offers the great advantage 

of representing a spatially-defined ‘community of interest’ 8 

1.8 This latter notion of ‘communities of interest’ implies that there is a strong subjective 

element to any definition, reflected in the areas with which people identify, where they 

shop, where they visit for leisure. However, in practice, the hard evidence of 

commuting flows has been used as the most powerful readily available indicator of the 

functional areas which people use, and such flows have direct implications both in 

defining labour markets and housing markets. It was on the basis of this work that 

TTWAs were developed as the official units for the calculation of local unemployment 

in the UK, first produced for the Department of Employment in the early 1980s using 

the journey-to-work matrix from Census data. The methodology was refined in 1984 

and a new set of TTWAs was created using the finest level of resolution then available 

from the 1981 Census: the 9289 wards of England and Wales. Since a major function of 

TTWAs was the calculation of local unemployment rates, it was important that the 

majority of jobs within a TTWA are filled by residents of that TTWA (demand-side selfcontainment) 

and that the majority of residents work within the area (supply-side selfcontainment), 

and that the difference between the two is minimised. Without these 

stipulations, TTWAs of major employment centres attracting large numbers of 

commuters would artificially deflate unemployment rates while conversely 

unemployment rates in predominantly dormitory towns would be inflated. Since TTWAs 

were used in policy design, it was also important that they should be as self-contained 

as possible so that government interventions should benefit local residents in areas with 

the greatest need rather than in-commuters 

1.9 These considerations influenced the set of requirements for the design of TTWAs. The 

first was that a minimum of 75 percent of the journey-to-work trips to and from any 

TTWA both started and ended within the area. The minimum size of each TTWA was a 

resident workforce of 3,500; whilst a size/self-containment trade-off was invoked so that 

in areas with a resident workforce greater than 20,000, self-containment was reduced to 

70 percent. The areas also had to be internally contiguous. The TTWAs currently in use 

were calculated from the 1991 Census 9. 

1.10 Much of the methodological approach to the definition of City-Regions was based on 

research from Newcastle’s Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies 

(CURDS) in the early 1980s. Their attempt to define cities as self-contained functional 

entities resulted in a framework of 228 urban centres and the allocation of the whole of 

8 Coombes, M.G. Green, A.E. and Owen, D.W. (1988) “Substantive issues in the definition of ‘localities’: evidence 

from sub-group Local Labour Market Areas in the West Midlands” Regional Studies, 22, 304. 

9 Office for National Statistics (1998) 1991-based Travel-to-Work Areas Office for National Statistics, London. 

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Britain between each of these centres as their ‘functional regions’. Recognising that the 

functional regions themselves produced under-bounded definitions of the metropolitan 

areas, they proposed twenty ‘metropolitan regions’ by aggregating functional regions 

that were closely linked to each other by commuting flows 10. 

1.11 As noted above, travel-to-work is only one of a range of possible definitions of the City- 

Region concept. Since the linkages between cores and hinterlands vary in terms of 

different functions, this working paper explores five different approaches to the 

definition of City-Regions: 

1. Labour-market definitions 

The most commonly used approach is to focus on labour markets, as measured by 

journey-to-work. This is the aim of Chapter 2 of the paper which explores TTW areas 

for England as a whole. Given the availability of Census data on travel-to-work flows in 

2001, there is considerable national information on which to examine the concept in 

some detail. 

2. Housing-market definitions 

City-Regions can also be defined as those areas in which households search for 

residential locations. This implies that house prices within such areas would move 

roughly in tandem. In theory, there is a close relationship between labour-market and 

housing-market areas since both are in principle strongly determined by commuting 

flows (at least for those households that are economically active). In practice, however, 

the search areas used by households making residential location decisions tend to be 

strongly influenced by their ‘mental maps’ of areas with which they are familiar. 

Residential moves within a labour market area consequently tend to be restricted to 

relatively short distances. Housing-market areas are therefore generally smaller than 

labour-market areas; for example, they frequently differentiate between sectors radiating 

out from core urban areas, so that house prices and the balance of supply and demand 

may be differentiated within wider labour-market areas. 

1.12 Other bases for defining City-Regions are more difficult to explore since (with the 

exception of household mobility data for 2000-01) there are no generally available 

national data. Hence in Chapters three and four, two case studies are used to explore 

three further definitions: 

3. Economic activity-based definitions 

While access to labour markets is a key element of business performance, other aspects 

of the City-Region may be highly significant for economic competitiveness. The richness 

of the surrounding area in terms of potential links other businesses and business 

services may be important in terms of the supply chains and procurement activities 

of firms. In principle this would seem to be an element of growing importance as 

knowledge-based activities come to play an ever more significant role in economic 

activity. It may also be that some aspects on the demand side are also relevant to the 

functioning of City-Regions. However, the difficulty in exploring either the supply or 

demand side is that there is a dearth of relevant data. 

10 Champion et al, (1983) ‘A new definition of cities’, Town and Country Planning, 52, 305-7.


4. Service-district definitions 

Service areas demarcate those regions from which users of city-based goods and 

services are drawn. Central place theory postulated an elegant model of settlements in 

which customers use their nearest available service so that a large number of places 

offer a restricted array of frequently-used services and are nested within progressively 

smaller numbers of ‘higher-order’ settlements which offer increasingly wide arrays of 

more specialised services. While the geometrical patterns of central place theory have 

little potency today – given changes in service provision and increased mobility – the 

underlying principle of frequency of use and distance travelled still has some potency. 

City-Regions based on higher-level services can therefore be defined in terms of the use 

of services such as major hospitals, theatres and concert halls, major shopping centres, 

international airports and the like. 

5. Administrative definitions 

Administrative regions can be considered a subset of service districts. While their 

boundaries are formal and ‘artificial’ they are functional areas in so far as services and 

strategies are developed within the defined boundaries. Some of the administrative 

areas are formal – for example, the structures of local authorities, agencies such as 

police, health authorities, learning and skills councils and the like, quangos, etc. – some 

are informal and based on non-statutory partnerships. 

1.13 The latter three approaches to defining City-Regions are explored in the contexts of the 

two exemplar areas of Greater Bristol and Greater Manchester. The case study areas 

were chosen in part to select areas two regions with different levels of economic 

prosperity and to use very different ‘conurbations’, one with a large and complex multicentred 

settlement pattern and the other a smaller and somewhat more mono-centric 

settlement. 

5

6 

CHAPTER 2 

English City-Regions based on 

labour and housing markets 

2.1 Britain’s first computerised regionalisation 11 program was created by Coombes et al 

to produce the CURDS (Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Newcastle University) 

Functional Regionalisation which has been widely used in a variety of social science 

fields. As well being methodologically advanced (especially in its self-optimising 

iterative grouping procedures), the results featured an upper tier of Metropolitan 

Regions 12 in the parts of the country where 1971 Census data showed longer-distance 

commuting was significant. These Metropolitan Region definitions highlight three key 

definitional issues: 

l they were nodal (i.e. multi-centred regions would not readily fit the definitional 

criteria); 

l they were non-exhaustive (i.e. parts of the country not fitting the criteria were 

left out); 

l they were commuting-based (i.e. not considering other flows such as migration). 

2.2 In the early 1980s CURDS critically reviewed 13 the then-inconsistent regionalisation used 

in Britain’s official set of labour market areas, the Travel-to-Work Areas (TTWAs), which 

are used not only for reporting official statistics but also for steering the allocation of 

substantial public funds. The government subsequently commissioned CURDS to revise 

TTWAs 14 based on the 1981 Census data, requiring an innovative method 15 to exploit 

the greater precision made possible with the 1981 data which were available for over 

10,000 zones. These analyses, of a matrix of c.100 million cells, have been 

internationally recognised 16 as a major advance in regionalisation methods. 

Subsequently the CURDS team were commissioned by the Manpower Services 

Commission to use the TTWA algorithm to explore variations in the commuting patterns 

11 Coombes, M.G. Dixon, J.S. Goddard, J.B. Openshaw, S. and Taylor, P.J. (1979) “Daily urban systems in Britain: 

from theory to practice” Environment and Planning A 11 565-574. 

12 Coombes, M.G. Dixon, J.S. Goddard, J.B. Openshaw, S. and Taylor, P.J. (1979) “The standard metropolitan 

labour area concept revisited” pp140-59 in M J Breheny (ed) Developments in urban and regional analysis 

(London Papers in Regional Science 10), Pion, London 

13 Coombes, M.G. and Openshaw, S. (1982) “The use and definition of Travel-To-Work Areas in Great Britain: 

some comments” Regional Studies 16 141-49. 

14 Coombes, M.G. Green, A.E. and Openshaw, S. (1985) “Britain’s changing local labour markets: evidence from 

the review of TTWAs” Employment Gazette 93 6-8. 

15 Coombes, M.G. Green, A.E. and Openshaw, S. (1986) “An efficient algorithm to generate official statistical 

reporting areas: the case of the 1984 Travel-to-Work Areas revision in Britain” Journal of the Operational 

Research Society 37 943-53. 

16 Frey, W.and Speare, A. (1995) “Metropolitan areas as functional communities” in Metropolitan and 

nonmetropolitan areas: new approaches to geographical definition Ed. D. C. Dahmann, Fitzsimmons, J. D. 

Population Division Working Paper 12 (US Bureau of the Census, Washington DC) 139-90.

of different workforce sub-groups 17 (for example, to contrast the TTWAs of professional 

workers with the equivalent labour market areas for part-time workers). In contrast to 

its Functional Region predecessor, the TTWA method is non-nodal and exhaustive 

(whilst the TTWAs themselves are commuting-based relying on analysis of commuting 

flows to the exclusion of any other data). 

2.3 Subsequently the CURDS team was commissioned to revise 18 TTWAs based on 1991 

Census data. At the same time, a new Research Council project grappled with the task 

of devising a more broadly-based set of locality boundaries 19 which are less dependant 

on commuting patterns than previous regionalisations. In addition, the commuting and 

migration datasets from the 1991 Census were ‘pooled’ to create a generalised measure 

of movement patterns between the 307 localities and this was used as the basis for 

defining 43 City-Regions centred on cities with certain key attributes. This set of City- 

Regions covers the whole of Britain and hence are nodal and exhaustive but, unlike 

the CURDS Metropolitan Regions which were their predecessors, they are not solely 

commuting-based in terms of their data inputs. One more recent variant was the set of 

Core City-Regions defined 20 for the Core Cities Group. These too are nodal and not 

solely commuting-based, but they are not exhaustive because one of the explicit 

objectives was to identify the spatial extent of these few cities’ main area of influence. 

2.4 Several recent studies have involved regionalisation at this wider scale. For example, a 

study for the Department of the Environment adapted the TTWA program to produce 

boundaries 21 covering the whole of England & Wales within a set of about 50 large labour 

market areas; a further adaptation was commissioned 22 by the City-Region Campaign 

to devise a set of City-Regions which might provide an alternative geography for the 

devolution of Whitehall powers. It was similar to the analyses of 1991 data for the Office 

for the Deputy Prime Minister which informed the definition of City-Regions for the 

Northern Way. One notable feature of this research was that it included some analyses 

with an exclusive focus on the commuting patterns of professional/managerial workers, 

an experiment which until then had not been tried since the innovative work in the 1980s. 

2.5 It is clear that there are two principal criteria that determine alternative definitions of 

commuting-based City-Regions: 

l Whether the coverage exhausts the country or is only partial; and 

l Whether destinations are nodal or non-nodal. 


17 Green, A.E. Coombes, M.G. and Owen, D.W. (1986) “Gender-specific Local Labour Market Areas in England 

and Wales” Geoforum 17 339-51; Coombes, M.G. Green, A.E. and Owen, D.W. (1988) “Substantive issues in the 

definition of ‘localities’: evidence from sub-group Local Labour Market Areas in the West Midlands” Regional 

Studies 22 303-18; Coombes M.G. (1993) “Britain’s sub-regional areas: extending the boundaries of diversity?” 

Cities and Regions / Villes et Regions 5 3-27 

18 Office for National Statistics (1998) 1991-based Travel-to-Work Areas Office for National Statistics, London. 

19 Coombes, M.G. (2000) “Defining locality boundaries with synthetic data” Environment & Planning A 32 1499- 

1518; Coombes, M.G. and Wymer, C. (2001) “A new approach to identifying localities: representing ‘places’ in 

Britain” pp51-68 in Madanipour, A. Hull, A. and Healey, P. (eds) The governance of place: space and planning 

processes Ashgate, Aldershot. 

20 Charles, D. Bradley, D. Chatterton, P. Coombes, M. and Gillespie, A. (1999) Core Cities: Key Centres for 

Regeneration: Synthesis Report, CURDS, Newcastle upon Tyne. 

21 Coombes, M.G. and Wymer, C. (1995) Developing an alternative geographical classification for local authorities 

in England for use in the Area Cost Adjustment within Standard Spending Assessments, Dept of Environment, 

London. 

22 Coombes, M.G. (1996) “Defining UK City-Regions” pp18-22 in S. Partridge (ed) Building a new Britain, City- 

Region Campaign, London. 

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2.6 In the present study, two alternative but complementary approaches have been 

developed: 

l The first is exhaustive and non-nodal. This means that every area in England is 

allocated to a City-Region and that there may be a variety of workplace destinations 

within each City-Region. The City-Regions emerge from the full set of travel-to-work 

data through an algorithm which simultaneously optimises the boundaries on the 

basis of a size of employment criterion and a minimum threshold of self-containment 

of flows to workplaces. This may therefore be thought of as a bottom-up or 

inductive approach to definition. 

l The second approach is non-exhaustive and nodal. This means that some parts of 

the country may not be allocated to a City-Region, and that flows are to a 

predetermined set of nodes or destinations. This can be thought of as a top-down or 

deductive approach. 

2.7 In some ways the second, top-down, approach may be considered a more appropriate 

way of identifying the tributary areas of the major cities within England, since it is 

based on significant identified nodes. Moreover, the inclusion of all parts of the country 

may not be a key consideration in exploring the relationship between cities and their 

tributary areas. However, the bottom-up approach provides a more inclusive way of 

understanding the workings of the complex flows of commuting across the whole 

country. It is this approach with which we start. 

Bottom-up definitions of travel-to-work areas 

2.8 The bottom-up non-nodal analysis for this report has been undertaken by Coombes at 

CURDS. In it, the key parameters which can be changed to define regions of differing 

scales are minima of size (the number of jobs in an area), and of self-containment (the 

proportion of commuters not crossing the region’s boundary – strictly speaking, it is the 

number who both live and work within the boundary as a percentage of the larger of 

the number of jobs in the area and the number of employed residents of the area). 

Some essentially arbitrary decisions have to be made in selecting appropriate values for 

these criteria, such as that areas are not considered City-Regions if they contain fewer 

than 100,000 jobs. Many of the more rural areas would have to ‘capture’ the majority of 

their surrounding counties before they would be deemed large enough to be a separate 

City-Region: for example, Truro would have to capture the whole of Cornwall. 

2.9 The level of self-containment which is then chosen determines the scale and the 

number of the City-Regions, and also influences the degree to which areas with smaller 

towns are grouped together as multi-nodal regions in order to reach the required 

population size whilst remaining separate from the major centre nearby. It is worth 

emphasising here that it is solely due to the non-nodal nature of the TTWA definitions 

that it is possible for these boundaries to identify groups of similarly-sized towns in 

polynuclear regions that may lack one dominant centre. Such polynuclear regions may 

not match the spirit of what City-Regions attempt to measure precisely because they do 

not all have a single dominant city. However, this approach can illuminate the degree 

to which such regions are an important feature of contemporary English urban 

geography.


2.10 Having determined that any City-Region would include at least 100,000 jobs, it was also 

decided that their minimum self-containment level should not be any lower than that 

used to define previous sets of TTWAs (in practice, 70%). Thus the first set of 

boundaries (Figure 2.1) is the result of applying these minima to the two key criteria for 

the data on commuting by the whole workforce. There are 71 regions whose principal 

urban centre lies in England. One region, whose main centre is clearly Shrewsbury, 

includes many people living in Wales. The only English area which is drawn into 

Scotland is Berwick which becomes a tributary to Edinburgh. Partly because the nonnodal 

approach does not require regions to include a single dominant centre, some 

regions struggle to conform to most ideas of what a City-Region is: for example, there is 

a separate region that groups Corby, Kettering, Rushden and Wellingborough with 

adjacent towns and rural areas in east Northamptonshire. The more obvious flaw with 

this version of ‘City-Regions’ is the boundary of London which is so tightly drawn that it 

excludes not only almost all the Home Counties but also parts of the conurbation itself. 

2.11 The next step is to raise the self-containment minimum so that fewer separate regions 

emerge. Figure 2.2 shows the result of setting the value at 85%. Whereas the previous 

analysis produced 71 regions whose principal urban centre is in England, these are now 

replaced by only 36 regions when the 85% criterion is used. Some of the more 

surprising features are that Burnley and Torquay feature as the main urban areas within 

separate regions, whereas Derby does not (and has been combined with Sheffield 

rather than Nottingham). As expected, the region centred on London is much larger 

than previously. 

2.12 Figure 2.3 provides an alternative set of boundaries which meet the same criteria of 

self-containment and size as in Figure 2.2. The change here is the technical one of 

stopping the regionalisation process before it carries out an “optimisation” step. One of 

the main advantages of the TTWA-type methodology is that it is not inherently 

hierarchical: in practice, this means that at an early stage areas A and B may be 

grouped alongside areas C and D and areas E and F, but if the combination of areas A 

and B is subsequently deemed unsatisfactory (for example, if it ‘fails’ as the selfcontainment 

threshold is raised) then area A may join C and D while B may join E and 

F. Decisions on which areas join which – both in the original grouping/allocations and 

later ‘re-allocations’ – are all determined by the same criterion. This particular criterion 

is the best way of balancing the gravitational attraction of the largest places as against 

the more local (and often multi-directional) links between ‘satellite’ areas. 

2.13 What is clear is that the difference made by the optimisation step is rather modest 

except around London where much more of the Home Counties – especially to the east 

– is included with London until the optimisation step re-groups them with nearby 

regions. 

2.14 Some unexpected regions emerge in this map. For example, the reason why the 

Burnley area emerges as a separate region in Figure 2.3 is that it includes a substantial 

workforce but has relatively few higher-earning people among its workforce which 

means that there are few longer-distance commuters. Consequently, the area has a 

rather high self-containment level. This is discussed further below in looking at different 

definitions of polycentricity. However a significant element of most definitions of a City- 

Region is that they provide most of their higher-level activities internally, and so it 

would be expected that such regions would include a fair number of better-paid 

workers living and working within their boundaries. 

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10 

2.15 The next approach therefore focuses only on the commuting patterns of 

professional/managerial workers and, because of their tendency to commute longer 

distances, they produce fewer separate regions than when the same criteria are applied 

to the total workforce. Figure 2.4 shows the boundaries of the regions – just 19 with 

their principal centre in England – which are defined using the same 85% selfcontainment 

criterion as in Figures 2.3 and 2.4 but using only the data on the higherstatus 

group in the workforce. These regions may be seen as too large as a definition of 

functional City-Regions, but the small number of regions it produces helps to 

demonstrate the significant pull of a few key English urban centres for the higher-paid 

professional groups. 

2.16 Reducing the key self-containment criterion to 80% produces a larger number of 

separate regions for the data on the professional/managerial workers’ commuting flows. 

Figure 2.5 shows these boundaries. On this basis a total of 37 regions emerges, each 

having their principal urban centre in England. Although any research of this kind 

inevitably leads to the conclusion that different sets of boundaries will be the most 

appropriate for different purposes – and so there is no simple answer in terms of the 

‘best’ map – Figure 2.5 may be thought to offer a solution which is likely to conform to 

many existing ideas of City-Regions in relevant literature.


Figure 2.1: Bottom-up City-Regions: all workforce, self containment 70% 

11


12 

Figure 2.2: Bottom-up City-Regions: all workforce, self-containment 85%


Figure 2.3: Bottom-up City-Regions: all workforce, self-containment 85% no optimisation 

13


14 

Figure 2.4: Bottom-up City-Regions: professional/managerial commuters, self-containment 85%


Figure 2.5: Bottom-up City-Regions: professional/managerial commuters, self-containment 80% 

15


16 

Top-down definitions of travel-to-work areas 

2.17 The alternative, deductive, approach is based on a nodal and non-exhaustive definition 

of City-Regions. The analysis has been done at the scale of whole local authority 

districts (although these could be subdivided into wards to produce a finer-scale 

analysis). In this approach the destination nodes are predetermined and origin districts 

are then defined as being within a given catchment if their largest flows to a destination 

node are greater than a certain threshold. The thresholds were determined in terms of 

the proportion of commuting flows outside the given origin district (in other words, 

excluding flows within the origin district itself). This latter element differs from the 

bottom-up approach which included all commuters whether or not they travel within 

their ‘home’ area. The percentage figures of flows in the top-down approach therefore 

measure not the overall level of self-containment, but the percentage of those who 

commute outside their local area (in this case the local authority district in which they 

live). 

2.18 The initial decisions about which places can be regarded as significant destination 

nodes was based on a set of five formal criteria: 

l the overall size of the employment base of districts; 

l the ratio of flows into versus flow out of a district; 

l the set of places defined as ‘significant’ urban areas by Coombes 23; 

l the set of higher-order retail centres defined by Hall et al 24; and 

l the set of higher-order urban centres defined by Hall et al 25. 

2.19 Table 2.1 shows the 44 places that meet three or more of these five criteria. These were 

the nodes selected as the basis for destinations. 

23 CURDS (1999) Core cities: key centres for regeneration Final Report. 

24 Hall, P. Marshall, S. and Lowe, M. (2001) ‘The changing urban hierarchy in England and Wales, 1913-1998’, 

Regional Studies, 35 , 775-808. 

25 Ibid.

Table 2.1: Selection criteria for destination nodes 


District Destination: 

origin ratio Destinations Coombes Hall urban Hall retail 

1.0 or more 50K+ list status status 

Birmingham x x x x x 

Bournemouth x x x 

Bradford x x x x x 

Brighton and Hove x x x x x 

Bristol, City of x x x x x 

Cambridge x x x x x 

Carlisle x x x 

Cheltenham x x x 

Chester x x x x 

City of London x x x x x 

Colchester x x x 

Coventry x x x x x 

Derby x x x x x 

Exeter x x x x x 

Gloucester x x x 

Ipswich x x x x 

Kingston upon Hull x x x x x 

Leeds x x x x x 

Leicester x x x x x 

Lincoln x x x 

Liverpool x x x x x 

Luton x x x 

Manchester x x x x x 

Middlesbrough x x x 

Milton Keynes x x x 

Newcastle upon Tyne x x x x x 

Northampton x x x x x 

Norwich x x x x x 

Nottingham x x x x x 

Oxford x x x x x 

Peterborough x x x x 

Plymouth x x x x x 

Portsmouth x x x x 

Preston x x x x 

Reading x x x x x 

Sheffield x x x x x 

Southampton x x x x x 

Stoke-on-Trent x x x x 

Sunderland x x x 

Swindon x x x x 

Telford and Wrekin x x x 

Wolverhampton x x x 

Worcester x x x 

York x x x x x 

17


18 

2.20 Some modifications were subsequently made to this list after the initial explorations of 

the census journey-to-work data. 

2.21 First, London was defined as the whole of Greater London, including all 33 boroughs. 

In the initial list of selected nodes only the City of London met the chosen threecriterion 

threshold. Only Croydon and Kingston meet Hall’s criterion of urban status. 

Ten of the boroughs have destination: origin ratios of 1.0 or more. All 32 boroughs 

have an employment base of 50,000 or more. Clearly there is a complex pattern of 

commuting flows between and within the 32 boroughs and, while one option could 

have been to use only those which were net importers of workers, it was decided to 

use the whole of the GLC area as a single destination node. 

2.22 Second – and for similar reasons – some of the major conurbations have more than 

one significant employment centre closely adjacent to each other. In such cases, districts 

with a significant employment base were treated as single destination nodes. Hence, 

Manchester was defined as the three districts of Manchester, Salford and Trafford; the 

West Midlands was defined as Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Sandwell; Tyneside as 

Newcastle and Gateshead; Teesside as Middlesbrough and Stockton; and Avon as Bristol 

and South Gloucester. 

2.23 Third, the initial runs of the model suggested considerable overlap between some of 

the commuting flows to adjacent towns and cities. Hence, a number of districts were 

combined: Leeds and Bradford; Portsmouth and Southampton; Gloucester and 

Cheltenham; Poole and Bournemouth; and Sunderland was combined with 

Newcastle/Gateshead. 

The final list comprised 39 nodes which are listed in Table 2.2 and mapped in 

Figure 2.6. 

Table 2.2: Selected destination nodes 

1 Birmingham/Sandwell/Wolverhampton 

2 Brighton and Hove 

3 Bristol/South Gloucestershire 

4 Cambridge 

5 Carlisle 

6 Chester 

7 Colchester 

8 Coventry 

9 Derby 

10 Exeter 

11 Gloucester/Cheltenham 

12 Greater London 

13 Ipswich 

14 Kingston upon Hull 

15 Leeds/Bradford 

16 Leicester 

17 Lincoln 

18 Liverpool 

19 Luton 

20 Manchester/Salford/Trafford 

21 Middlesbrough/Stockton-on-Tees 

22 Milton Keynes 

23 Newcastle upon 

Tyne/Gateshead/Sunderland 

24 Northampton 

25 Norwich 

26 Nottingham 

27 Oxford 

28 Peterborough 

29 Plymouth 

30 Portsmouth/Southampton 

31 Preston 

32 Reading 

33 Sheffield 

34 Stoke-on-Trent 

35 Swindon 

36 Telford and Wrekin 

37 Worcester 

38 York 

39 Bournemouth/Poole

Figure 2.6: Destination nodes for the top-down approach 


Node 

19


20 

2.24 The minimum threshold of flows from each origin district to the destination nodes can 

then be altered to produce a sequence of alternative geometries for the City-Regions. 

Figure 2.7 shows the origin districts which are included in a City-Region based on the 

39 destination nodes, using a sequence of cut-offs of the flows to the selected 

destinations – from 35% down to 15%. These maps distinguish the destination nodes, 

the origin nodes included in a City-Region, and origin nodes which (at a given cut-off 

level) are divided between two destinations. Only by the stage of including flows of 

15% is almost the whole of England included in one of the City-Regions (and even then 

much of the South West, the Welsh borders, south Cumbria and parts of the east cost 

fall outside the regions). More significant, at the 15% minimum a large number of 

districts are included in more than one City-Region since 15% or more of their net 

outflow goes to two of the selected nodes. At 20% this applies to only 5 districts 26. At 

the 25% cut-off, however, no district is split between City-Regions. At a district scale, 

this may therefore seem an appropriate threshold to identify the unambiguous 

catchments of the selected destination nodes. 

Figure 2.7: Catchments with 35%, 30%, 25%, 20% and 15% cut-offs 

Node 

Catchment 

a) 35% cut-off b) 30% cut-off 

26 Clearly, were the analysis to be done at a ward rather than a district scale, many of these overlaps would 

disappear. 

Node 

Catchment

Figure 2.7: Catchments with 35%, 30%, 25%, 20% and 15% cut-offs – continued 

c) 25% cut-off d) 20% cut-off 

e) 15% cut-off 

Node 

Catchment 

Node 

Catchment 


Node 

Catchment 

2.25 The City-Region boundaries using the 25% cut-off are therefore shown in Figure 2.8 

showing the origin areas from which 25% or more outward commuters travel to one of 

the destination nodes and the catchment boundaries for each of the destination nodes. 

21


22 

Figure 2.8: City-region boundaries with a 25% cut-off 

Node 

Catchment 

25% Cut off 

2.26 There is a very close match between this outcome using a top-down approach (Figure 

2.8) and the pattern for professional journeys-to-work using a bottom-up approach 

(Figure 2.5). This can best be seen by overlaying the pre-identified nodes of the topdown 

approach onto the City-Regions shown in Figure 2.5. This is shown in Figure 2.9. 

In almost all cases, the professional bottom-up regions coincide with a single node of 

the top-down method. Where there are differences, they generally apply to areas that 

are largely rural or which lack a clear major town or city that provides a major 

employment destination. Examples of rural areas include the northern parts of the North 

West and east Lincolnshire. York is drawn into Leeds/Bradford rather than being a 

separate region. London’s region stretches further to the north west to include Oxford;


and (as with the top-down approach) it does not include Kent although (unlike the topdown 

approach) it does not include Sussex. The differences largely stem from using an 

exhaustive and non-nodal method in the bottom-up approach. 

2.27 The close parallel between these two maps lends some force to the view that the result 

of the top-down method in Figure 2.8 provides a best estimate of the City-Regions of 

the major towns and cities in England. 

Figure 2.9: The match between City-Regions using bottom-up and top-down methods 

Node 

Self-containment 80% 

Note: The nodes used in the top-down approach are superimposed on the ward-based boundaries of the professional 

commuting flows in the bottom-up approach of Figure 2.5. 

23


24 

2.28 All of these top-down results are based on thresholds using percentages. This inevitably 

smoothes out the detailed complexity of the gross patterns of journeys to work and 

necessarily ignores the very long-distance flows which are normally too few in 

aggregate to appear in the resulting geometry of City-Regions. Nowhere is this more the 

case than for flows to and from London (see section 2.3 below). The reach of the 

capital – in a small country with a mobile population – is clearly a dominant element 

across the whole of the settlement pattern of England. 

2.29 Likewise, there are variations as between the flows for different occupational groups. 

These can be illustrated by looking at the extremes of the occupational hierarchy, by 

comparing the catchment areas for professional/managerial groups as against those for 

semi-skilled and routine workers. Figures 2.10 and 2.11 show the marked contrasts 

between the two, using a cut-off of 20% of the respective group commuting from an 

origin area to one of the destination nodes. The catchment areas for the professional 

commuters (Figure 2.10) are far larger than are those for the semi-skilled/routine 

workers (Figure 2.11). For the latter, many of the destination nodes have no catchment 

area beyond their own boundaries; in other words, for routine and semi-skilled 

workers, many of the destination nodes effectively draw overwhelmingly on workers 

from within their own boundaries. Where there are links with origins outside the 

destination districts these tend either to be cases where the destination node has tightlydrawn 

boundaries so that short-distance moves into them produce larger catchments 

(as, for example, the case of Norwich, or Lincoln); or those areas where there are 

adjacent destination nodes in large conurbations (as, for example, in the West Midlands 

or Greater London). 

2.30 In contrast, for the professional groups (Figure 2.11), many of the destination nodes 

have quite extensive catchments which draw on origins well outside the destination 

districts.

Figure 2.10: Catchments for professional and managerial workers 


Node 

Catchment 

25


26 

Figure 2.11: Catchments for semi-skilled and routine workers 

Node 

Catchment 

2.31 It is clear from both the top-down and bottom-up approaches that the pattern of 

commuting flows highly is complex and that there is no single ‘best’ geometry of City- 

Regions. Different patterns of regionalisation emerge depending on: the technique 

adopted and the minimum criteria selected; the specific group of commuters analysed, 

where the different lengths of commuting by different occupational groups can make 

significant differences to the number and composition of City-Regions; and on the 

nature of the areas concerned, where there are strong contrasts between rural and 

urban areas and between, for example, medium-sized ex-industrial towns and big multifunctional 

cities.


2.32 However, despite the complexity of commuting flows, it is clear that a large fraction of 

the England – and an even larger fraction of its population – falls squarely within the 

ambit of the major cities in the country. The close relationship between the bottom-up 

definition using professional/managerial commuters (Figure 2.5) and the top-down 

definition using a cut-off of 25% of commuters moving from origin areas to one of the 

predetermined destination nodes (Figure 2.9) suggests a clear pattern of travel-to-work 

regions. The nodes are not dissimilar and they suggest the role played by the major 

cities and some of the larger towns as organising foci within the complex commuting 

flows. If we were to identify a ‘best’ travel-to-work definition of City-Regions, these two 

maps (one having exhaustive coverage and the other selectively focused on preidentified 

nodes) would probably form the most useful geometry. 

Polycentric patterns and networks between 

major cities 

2.33 There are two generic issues that arise from these analyses: the interpretation of 

unicentric as against polycentric City-Regions; and the interplay between the distancerelated 

geography of commuting catchments as against the network-related flows 

between major cities. 

2.34 On the first, there appear to be three different types of polycentric City-Region: 

l Areas which lack a single dominant employment node and whose emergence as 

‘City-Regions’ results from the aggregation of a number of small nodes each of which 

draws largely on its immediately surrounding territory. This is a pattern typical of 

most of the low-density rural and semi-rural areas of the country, clearly apparent in 

much of the South West, the Welsh borders, Lincolnshire and Cumbria. 

2.35 Areas defined for different groups in the occupational structure. As Figures 2.4 & 2.5 

and 2.10 & 2.11 show, the catchments for professional and managerial workers are 

notably more extensive than those for semi-skilled and unskilled workers: hence the 

smaller number of City-Regions for these groups than for the total workforce. In areas 

with towns with a substantial base of semi-skilled and unskilled employment, 

commuting to these towns is likely to be essentially short distance, but can be overlain 

by larger areas of longer-distance commuting to a nearby a major city. The case of 

Burnley, noted above, is one example of this. 

2.36 Areas in which there are numerous competing employment nodes, but also a dominant 

large city whose commuting catchment transcends the local catchments of these smaller 

centres. In many respects this is the equivalent of central-place theory’s concept of a 

hierarchy of settlements in which smaller places provide local populations with 

frequently-purchased goods and services and nestle within the catchments of larger 

places which provide more specialised goods and services for progressively wider 

areas. This is classically the case for the London labour market. It is the reason why 

Figure 2.3 shows a much larger London City-Region than does Figure 2.2. In part, the 

London phenomenon is also a function of the second definition of polycentricity related 

to occupational composition, since the most wide-flung of its commuters tend to be 

predominantly professional and managerial. 

27


28 

2.37 The geometry of the first and second of these types of polycentric areas is suggested by 

the degree to which commuting flows are contained within a given district. Figure 2.12 

shows the percentage of overall flows that are intra-district. The pattern is predictable 

but nevertheless quite striking, with the belt of ‘urban’ England from London to 

Lancashire having low percentages together with other outlying urban areas such as 

Tyne-Tees and some of the free-standing towns such as Hull and Bristol and some of 

the commuting tributary areas close to large towns (for example around Norwich, 

Bournemouth/Poole, and Plymouth). In contrast, there are high levels of within-flows in 

most of the peripheral areas of England – Cumbria, Northumberland, the Pennines, 

much of the east coast, most of the south west and (more surprisingly) much of Kent 

and East Sussex. These percentages are clearly in part a function of the geographical 

size of districts – by definition, other things being equal, larger places have higher 

within-flows – but a much more significant element is the actual pattern of commuting. 

The areas with high levels of intra-district flows are largely the areas that lie outside the 

effective commuting reach of urban Britain or they are areas dominated by an industrial 

legacy that means they draw on an essentially local largely manual employment base 

and are less attractive as dormitory locations for longer-distance commuters (for 

example, districts such as Wigan, Rochdale, Tameside and Oldham in the North West, 

or North and North-East Lincolnshire, or the Medway Towns in Kent). It is for this 

reason that as an approach to defining real City-Regions the deductive top-down 

approach may be the more appropriate than the inductive bottom-up approach.


Figure 2.12: Percentage of total commuting that is within each local authority district 

Within district % 

80 to 100 

70 to 80 

60 to 70 

50 to 60 

0 to 50 

2.38 The third type of polycentricity – best illustrated by London – is strongly connected to 

the different commuting distances (and contact patterns) typical of professional workers 

as against routine workers. If one focuses primarily on employment sectors with a high 

skills content, City-Regions can be seen more as networks than as contiguous 

geographical areas. Thus, for example, in the Polynet study of London and the South 

East, the apparently huge extent of London’s influence spreads across a significant part 

of the whole of southern England and incorporates flows to second- and third-order 

29


30 

places such as Reading, Swindon, Southampton and Cambridge 27. The study’s focus on 

advanced professional services means that the flows of business contact and influence 

are probably stronger with large centres outside the mega-SE – to places such as 

Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds – than to smaller places with the region. 

This is equally reflected in the flows of travel-to-work. 

2.39 This can be illustrated by looking at the district-level flows between Greater London and 

the eight core cities. Table 2.3 shows the absolute flows for all the relevant districts, the 

ratio between flows from London and flows to London, and the flows to London as a 

percentage of overall net outflows. For all eight core cities, the absolute numbers of 

London links are not inconsiderable – over 3,000 flows from London and over 6,000 

flows to London (the latter representing almost 2% of the overall net outflows). As 

would be expected, the flows to London are greater than flows from London (with the 

one exception of Manchester, where the flows are the same in both directions – 

reflecting Manchester’s tight administrative boundaries and the small number of 

professionals living within the city itself). For most of the cities the ratio of flows from: 

flows to is around one-half (with Nottingham having a higher ratio, reflecting its 

proximity to London. The flows to London as a percentage of overall net outflows is 

clearly influenced by distance and the speed of rail connections – the highest figures 

being for Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol and Nottingham (and the highest figure for all the 

conurbation districts being for Bath at over 3%). 

Table 2.3: Travel-to-work flows between London and the core cities 

District Ratio of Flows to 

Flows from Flows to flows from: Greater London 

Greater Greater to Greater as % of net 

London London London outflows 

Bolton 77 265 0.29 0.71 

Bury 36 239 0.15 0.59 

Manchester 610 613 1.00 1.30 

Oldham 39 209 0.19 0.62 

Rochdale 60 242 0.25 0.74 

Salford 214 347 0.62 0.84 

Stockport 136 462 0.29 0.78 

Tameside 69 229 0.30 0.54 

Trafford 151 333 0.45 0.74 

Wigan 92 379 0.24 0.72 

GR.MANCHESTER 1484 3318 0.45 0.77 

Bath & NE Somerset 187 740 0.25 3.11 

Bristol 443 837 0.53 1.86 

North Somerset 73 468 0.16 1.46 

S. Gloucestershire 214 570 0.38 1.10 

GR.BRISTOL 917 2615 0.35 1.71 

27 Hall, P. Pain, K. Green, N. Walker, D. &.Potts, G. (2005) POLYNET, Working Papers 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, Institute for 

Community Studies.


Table 2.3: Travel-to-work flows between London and the core cities – continued 

District Ratio of Flows to 

Flows from Flows to flows from: Greater London 

Greater Greater to Greater as % of net 

London London London outflows 

Knowsley 36 247 0.15 0.80 

Liverpool 297 551 0.54 1.37 

St. Helens 18 200 0.09 0.61 

Sefton 67 387 0.17 0.83 

Wirral 65 386 0.17 0.93 

MERSEYSIDE 483 1771 0.27 0.92 

Barnsley 33 183 0.18 0.62 

Doncaster 53 513 0.10 1.78 

Rotherham 76 294 0.26 0.71 

Sheffield 319 672 0.47 1.88 

S.YORKSHIRE 481 1662 0.29 1.23 

Gateshead 24 279 0.09 0.79 

Newcastle upon Tyne 164 360 0.46 1.15 

North Tyneside 80 232 0.34 0.56 

South Tyneside 21 220 0.10 0.86 

Sunderland 66 289 0.23 0.89 

TYNE & WEAR 355 1380 0.26 0.83 

Birmingham 964 2066 0.47 2.62 

Coventry 256 601 0.43 1.89 

Dudley 104 422 0.25 0.78 

Sandwell 127 282 0.45 0.56 

Solihull 158 541 0.29 1.10 

Walsall 95 350 0.27 0.85 

Wolverhampton 105 321 0.33 0.94 

WEST MIDLANDS 1809 4583 0.39 1.35 

Bradford 176 406 0.43 0.98 

Calderdale 102 229 0.45 0.93 

Kirklees 206 451 0.46 0.87 

Leeds 415 1104 0.38 2.11 

Wakefield 86 314 0.27 0.75 

WEST YORKSHIRE 985 2504 0.39 1.18 

Derby 151 360 0.42 1.59 

Nottingham 364 483 0.75 1.76 

GREATER NOTTINGHAM 515 843 0.61 1.68 

Eight core cities 3576 6686 0.53 1.87 

Eight conurbations 14058 37352 0.38 1.11 

2.40 These flows between London and the core cities are a special case of the network of 

flows between large places. It is clear that there are two complementary determinants 

of the patterns of flows – one being distance-related and the other being prompted by 

settlement size. Most of the travel-to-work flows are essentially constrained by distance. 

Other things being equal, commuters travel shorter rather than longer distances. 

31


32 

However, the network of flows between large distant places are of some significance. 

They reflect the complementarities and the pull between places with large numbers of 

more specialised jobs and activities. It is this which (as discussed in the case studies of 

Bristol and Manchester in Chapters 3 and 4) provides the logic to the location and the 

roles of advanced high-value activities such as financial and professional services. 

Housing market definitions of City-Regions 

2.41 There is a predictable functional relationship between the travel-to-work geometry of 

City-Regions and that based on the operation of housing markets. Unless people change 

the location of their work and this is associated with a residential move, the area within 

which households search for new housing will lie within the ‘normal’ extent of the 

travel-to-work catchments of their workplace. It is almost certain, however, that for any 

individual household, their search for new housing is likely to be more spatially 

constrained than the overall labour market catchment, because their search is likely to 

be guided by their familiarity with local areas within which they travel. Typically, for a 

household working in a big city, this would imply a sectoral pattern in which locational 

search is within an area within the quadrant of the labour market within which they 

already live. In Greater Manchester, for example, there is a marked discrepancy 

between house prices in the northern sector and the southern sector of the Greater 

Manchester City-Region. Anecdotal evidence suggests that those in the south (where 

prices are markedly higher) largely restrict their residential movements to the southern 

sector; and vice versa for the north. 

2.42 The difficulty in demonstrating this is that – with the exception of house prices which 

can be taken as an indirect indicator of moves in the housing market – there are no 

available national data on residential mobility specifically for those who do not change 

jobs. The closest available data are either from the Census, which records mobility in 

the year preceding census day, or from the NHS Central Register (NHSCR), which 

records GP patient addresses. Both of these data sets, of course, include both those 

whose move is linked with job change as well as those who move for ‘personal’ 

reasons. Inevitably this means that the migration flows are much more far-flung than are 

the travel-to-work data. The Census data are more complete and accurate than the 

NHSCR data since the latter rely on patients registering with a new GP or alerting their 

GP to a change of address. However since the NHSCR data are recorded annually they 

provide a more continuous (and therefore updateable) record than does the decennial 

Census. 

2.43 We can look at the two cases of Greater Bristol and Greater Manchester as examples 

of the pattern of residential movement, using the NHSCR data. In each case, the key 

statistic used to interpret the data is residential ‘churn’ during the year 2001-02. Churn 

is defined as wholly-moving households which have moved either to or from another 

district in that year. This is a measure of the linkage between districts; it ignores 

whether the flow is to or from the relevant district since our interest is in linkages 

between areas rather than in the direction of flow. 

2.44 For Greater Bristol, Figures 2.13 to 2.17 show the percentage of total churn between 

English districts and the whole of Avon and for each of its four constituent districts. 

By far the largest movements are essentially local and short distance between the four 

districts themselves.

Figure 2.13: Housing churn 2001-2 – Avon 


Avon Churn% 

0.7 to 25 (16) 

0.6 to 0.7 (3) 

0.5 to 0.6 (9) 

0.4 to 0.5 (15) 

0.2 to 0.4 (58) 

33


34 

Figure 2.14: Housing churn 2001-2 – Bristol 

Bristol Churn% 

0.7 to 25 

0.6 to 0.7 

0.5 to 0.6 

0.4 to 0.5 

0.2 to 0.4

Figure 2.15: Housing churn 2001-2 – North Somerset 


North Somerset Churn% 

0.7 to 25 (16) 

0.6 to 0.7 (3) 

0.5 to 0.6 (7) 

0.4 to 0.5 (9) 

0.2 to 0.4 (75) 

35


36 

Figure 2.16: Housing churn 2001-2 – South Gloucestershire 

South Gloucestershire Churn% 

0.7 to 36 (14) 

0.6 to 0.7 (6) 

0.5 to 0.6 (1) 

0.4 to 0.5 (6) 

0.2 to 0.4 (22)

Figure 2.17: Housing churn 2001-2 – Bath & NES 


Bath Churn% 

0.7 to 25 (19) 

0.6 to 0.7 (3) 

0.5 to 0.6 (9) 

0.4 to 0.5 (15) 

0.2 to 0.4 (58) 

2.45 For each of the Avon districts, all of the other three Avon districts are within the highest 

6 of the linkages (Table 2.4). However, the links extend significantly beyond Avon itself: 

the adjoining districts of Mendip and Sedgmoor to the south, North Wiltshire and West 

Wiltshire to the west, and Stroud to the north are significantly involved in the Avon 

housing market. The other striking feature is the role that communications appear to 

play in influencing the pattern of linkages: districts along the line of the M5 to the south 

west feature disproportionately, as do districts in South Wales linked by the M4. Most of 

the longer-distance moves (which are probably associated with job changes) produce 

links with major cities and towns; for example with Birmingham, Coventry, west 

London, Southampton, Portsmouth, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, 

37


38 

Newcastle, Brighton and Cambridge. The churn for the two major cities of Bristol and 

Bath tend to show a higher proportion of such inter-urban links than do North 

Somerset and South Gloucestershire, whose links tend to be more localised. 

Table 2.4: Percentage of total churn for Avon districts – highest six areas 

Bristol Bath N. Somerset S.Glo 

S.Glo. 17.8 Bristol 10.2 Bristol 21.3 Bristol 35.9 

N.Som. 8.0 Mendip 6.9 Sedgemoor 7.2 Bath & NES 5.4 

Bath & NES 4.4 S.Glo. 6.2 S.Glo. 5.8 N.Somerset 4.4 

Cardiff 1.6 W.Wilts 4.8 S.Glo. 5.8 N.Som. 4.4 

Birmingham 1.3 N.Wilts 3.8 Mendip 1.8 N.Wilts 1.5 

Sedgemoor 1.2 N.Som. 2.3 Birmingham 1.6 Cardiff 1.4 

2.46 For the whole Avon City-Region, the housing market data suggest an effective 

catchment that is more extensive than the four core districts themselves. Mendip, 

Sedgemoor, North Wiltshire, West Wiltshire and Stroud clearly have significant links 

with the Avon districts. 

2.47 The comparable maps for Greater Manchester and four of its ten districts are shown in 

Figures 2.18 to 2.22. Again, there is an overwhelming concentration of linkages with 

other districts within the conurbation, but with significant spill-over with some of the 

adjacent and with some outlying districts. For the whole of Greater Manchester (Figure 

2.18) there is a penumbra of high linkages with areas around the conurbation and also 

links with the West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire conurbations, north Lancashire, 

‘retirement’ areas in north Wales, the Lake District, east coast and the south west. The 

overwhelming pattern is of an east-west cross-Pennine belt, but outside this there are 

links with some of the major towns such as Birmingham, London, Nottingham, Bristol 

and Newcastle. The four selected individual districts show some variation: for example, 

Manchester is more strongly linked with London and north Cheshire; and Stockport is 

more strongly linked with north Cheshire and with retirement areas such as north 

Wales.

Figure 2.18: Housing churn 2001-2 – Greater Manchester 


GMC Churn% 

0.7 to 25 (31) 

0.6 to 0.7 (11) 

0.5 to 0.6 (11) 

0.4 to 0.5 (20) 

0.2 to 0.4 (50) 

39


40 

Figure 2.19: Housing churn 2001-2 – Manchester 

Manchester Churn% 

0.7 to 25 (19) 

0.6 to 0.7 (1) 

0.5 to 0.6 (14) 

0.4 to 0.5 (15) 

0.2 to 0.4 (31)

Figure 2.20: Housing churn 2001-2 – Rochdale 


Rochdale Churn% 

0.7 to 25 (22) 

0.6 to 0.7 (2) 

0.5 to 0.6 (5) 

0.4 to 0.5 (1) 

0.2 to 0.4 (30) 

41


42 

Figure 2.21: Housing churn 2001-2 – Salford 

Salford Churn% 

0.7 to 25 (18) 

0.6 to 0.7 (5) 

0.5 to 0.6 (7) 

0.4 to 0.5 (6) 

0.2 to 0.4 (27)

Figure 2.22: Housing churn 2001-2 – Stockport 


2.48 There is some interest in comparing the results from these NHSCR data with those from 

the Census 28, as a check on the robustness of the former. By and large – at least for the 

major flows – the two data sources produce very similar results. For example, taking 

the largest 20 flows from each, for Avon 14 districts appear in both lists, and for Greater 

Manchester 19 districts are common to both. This suggests that one can with some 

confidence use the annual NHSCR data to provide up-to-date indications of the major 

flows of household movement. 

28 Census data refer to moves in the year 2000-01. 

Stockport Churn% 

0.7 to 25 (20) 

0.6 to 0.7 (3) 

0.5 to 0.6 (12) 

0.4 to 0.5 (15) 

0.2 to 0.4 (16) 

43


44 

2.49 One of the striking features of the maps for both Avon and Greater Manchester is the 

high level of churn associated with other large cities elsewhere in England, often at 

some distance removed. Clearly, other things being equal, the larger the population of a 

district the greater the probability of there being migration to or from it. This could be 

anticipated from the widely-used gravity model of migration which uses a formula that 

predicts that the level of linkage between two places is proportional to their combined 

population and inversely related to the distance between them. This is exactly the kind 

of interplay between the contiguous distance-constrained and discontinuous networkrelated 

flows that were discussed in relation to the travel-to-work data in section 2.3 

above. We can therefore derive a better estimate of housing-market-related City-Regions 

by discounting the population size of the linked districts. Table 2.5 does this by looking 

at the ratio of the percentage of actual churn to the expected percentage (based on the 

population size of the linked district). Places with ratios greater than 1.0 are districts 

with greater-than-expected churn. The table lists those places with ratios of 2.0 or more 

for Avon and Greater Manchester. This is one useful way of helping to define housingmarket 

City-Regions. 

2.50 If only those districts with a very high ratio (a figure of 10 or more) were selected as 

falling within the relevant City-Region, this would suggest that Avon’s housing-based 

City-Region would include Mendip, Sedgemoor, West Wiltshire, Stroud and North 

Wiltshire; and Greater Manchester’s would include Rossendale, Macclesfield, High Peak, 

and probably Chorley and Warrington.


Table 2.5: Household churn: actual to expected in relation to the population size of districts – 

highest ratios for Greater Manchester and Avon 

Greater Manchester Avon 

District Actual: expected District Actual: expected 

Rossendale 24.8 Mendip 21.0 

Macclesfield 19.3 Sedgemoor 19.7 

High Peak 18.8 West Wiltshire 13.4 

Chorley 9.8 Stroud 13.0 

Warrington 9.6 North Wiltshire 11.9 

West Lancashire 8.3 Monmouthshire 7.1 

Vale Royal 7.0 Isles of Scilly 5.8 

Wyre 6.6 Taunton Deane 5.6 

St. Helens 6.6 West Somerset 5.2 

Conwy 6.4 South Hams 4.8 

Blackpool 6.3 Kennet 4.3 

Fylde 6.0 Forest of Dean 4.1 

Congleton 5.7 Cheltenham 4.0 

Blackburn with Darwen 5.7 Torbay 4.0 

Denbighshire 5.1 Mid Devon 3.9 

Isle of Anglesey 4.4 Exeter 3.8 

Lancaster 4.4 North Devon 3.8 

City of London 4.2 South Somerset 3.7 

Ribble Valley 3.8 Gloucester 3.6 

Preston 3.2 Swindon 3.5 

Burnley 3.0 Carrick 3.4 

Crewe and Nantwich 3.0 Cotswold 3.4 

Calderdale 3.0 Teignbridge 3.3 

South Lakeland 3.0 Penwith 3.2 

Hyndburn 2.9 East Devon 3.1 

Pendle 2.8 West Devon 3.1 

Chester 2.8 North Cornwall 3.1 

South Ribble 2.4 Kerrier 2.8 

Gwynedd 2.3 Ceredigion 2.7 

Halton 2.3 Plymouth 2.7 

Eden 2.1 Caradon 2.6 

Vale of White Horse 2.5 

Tewkesbury 2.5 

Oxford 2.3 

Reading 2.3 

West Dorset 2.3 

Restormel 2.2 

Salisbury 2.2 

Hart 2.2 

Newport 2.2 

Cardiff 2.1 

Weymouth and Portland 2.0 

45


46 

Conclusion 

2.51 The labour-market and housing-market approaches tend to reinforce each other as 

definitions of City-Regions. For Avon, both approaches suggest a region that includes 

some of the districts that lie beyond the boundaries of the four Avon authorities. For 

Greater Manchester, the similarity is less clear because the TTW area for the total 

workforce is constrained by adjacent destination nodes (especially to the east where 

there is a split between Manchester and Liverpool). However, the pattern of 

professional/managerial flows suggests a definition similar to those of the housingmarket 

flows, with the Greater Manchester catchment clearly extending into north 

Cheshire, the Peak District and perhaps Warrington and, to the north, into Rossendale.

CHAPTER 3 

The Greater Bristol City-Region 

3.1 Whereas there are available national data for commuting and for household movement, 

there are no such data for business linkages or for flows to services. These aspects of 

defining City-Regions are therefore explored through two case study areas, Greater 

Bristol and Greater Manchester. In each case, the discussions draw on a wide range of 

interviews in the two areas and on specific data sets supplied by some of the 

interviewees 28. The interviews were targeted at senior staff in local authority 

departments and in large businesses and other organisations that could be expected 

to play a role in the functioning of the respective City-Regions. 

Introduction 

3.2 The Bristol sub-region comprises the four unitary authorities of Bath & North East 

Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire 29. Prior to the abolition of 

metropolitan councils, it formed the upper-tier authority of Avon. Bristol itself is the 

largest urban area in the South West region (SW), and is the region’s principal economic 

engine, generating around 24% of regional GDP and containing 24% of its employment. 

3.3 The sub-region has a population of one million with average earnings of £23,629; and 

GDP per capita 23% above the national average which is the second highest in England 

after London. It is the largest employment centre in the SW region with a total 

employment of 490,501 drawing its labour force from a wide geographical area that 

includes Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and South Wales. 

3.4 A fast growing economy, it is the hub of activity for key sectors of the regional and 

national economy such as aerospace, ‘high tech’ manufacture, computer services and 

financial services and is by far the largest regional employment centre for these sectors. 

For example, the sub region accounts for 40% of the total regional employment in 

financial services, over 30% in aerospace and 30% of total regional employment in 

computer services 30. 

29 In Greater Bristol, 19 interviews were held and in Greater Manchester 23. We are most grateful for the help 

offered by all the interviewees, and in particular for the help and hospitality of Terry Wagstaff, Assistant Chief 

Executive of Bristol City who kindly made arrangements for most of the Bristol interviews. 

30 For convenience, the combined area of the four authorities will generally be referred to here as ‘Avon’ or 

‘Greater Bristol’. However, many of the formal and informal partnerships that cover the areas are called ‘West 

of England’ and this formal name is used where appropriate. 

31 Jackson, M. and Plumridge, A. (2002) ‘So far so good. .’ The economy of the West of England, UWE. 

47


48 

Figure 3.1: The West of England sub-region 

Source: The West of England Partnership 

3.5 The travel-to-work patterns which were explored in Chapter 2 defined the Bristol-City- 

Region as a relatively self-contained area. This chapter aims to explore the Bristol City- 

Region in terms of other types of flows, especially for goods and services. The 

economic linkages of businesses based in the sub-region are examined first from a 

sample of 88 businesses taken from a survey conducted by the University of the West of 

England (UWE) and second in terms of businesses in two distinct sectors, aerospace 

and creative industries. In addition, we examine the spread of businesses supplying 

goods and services to Bristol City Council and the flows of passenger and freight from 

Bristol International Airport and Bristol Port. 

3.6 The degree of self-containment in the housing market is briefly reiterated in terms of 

household movements from the Census 2001 and the NHS Central Register (NHSCR). 

Then we examine the City-Region with respect to flows for goods and services: 

mapping the spread of shoppers; the spread of theatre goers; the first destination of 

Bristol/Bath graduates; and finally the reach of the employment base of a number of 

employers such as the Frenchway and Southmead hospitals.

Economic Linkages 

3.7 Evidence of the overall supply-chain linkages of the sub-region is mainly drawn from a 

2002 Chamber of Commerce Survey, consultations undertaken for a report produced by 

UWE in 2002 32 and interviews conducted as part of this project. 

3.8 Economic linkages, examined in terms of market links and supply links of firms based 

in the sub-region, are essentially “spatially very diverse, varying with sector, size of firm 

and the location of markets” 33. Not surprisingly, the clearest linkages are on the supply 

side, with 60% of all supplies of firms being procured within the sub-region itself. This 

suggests the high level of self-containment of the sub-regional economy. 

3.9 As expected, certain types of goods and services – especially advertising, marketing, 

design, recruitment and training services, printing and office supplies – were the most 

likely to be procured from within the sub-region. This largely reflects the nature of 

these services which benefit from face-to-face interaction between the supplier and 

recipient of services. Conversely, other types of goods and services, such as purchased 

components, were less likely to be sourced from within the sub-region. As shown in 

Table 3.1, Bristol and Bath account for the majority of suppliers. The most striking 

aspect of the table is the contrast between the highly localised supply chains for the 

range of services (financial, legal, marketing, training and even logistics) together with 

office supplies, as against the much more national and global links for purchased 

components. 

Table 3.1: West of England supply linkages 

Banking & Accounting Legal Advertising, Recruitment Distribution Printing & Purchased 

finance services marketing & training & logistics office components 

& design supplies 

Avon 61.4 65 66.4 69.2 74.9 69.4 82.7 23.5 

Exeter/Plymouth 1.8 1 1.7 2.1 1 0.9 2.6 12.1 

Gloucester 

/Cheltenham 

0.9 6.5 8.9 4.2 3.6 9.5 3.3 8.2 

Swindon 2.5 1 3.3 3.7 1.8 1 1 6.4 

Other SW 0.9 1 1.6 1 3.6 1.5 1 5.3 

Southampton 

/Bournemouth 

1.8 0 1 0 1.8 0 1 5.5 

Birmingham 1.6 0.6 1.7 2.4 1.6 1 1 8.8 

London 13.7 15 9.7 12.9 4.2 11.3 4.6 10.8 

Cardiff 3.5 2.7 1.7 1 3.6 1.5 1 5.3 

Other UK 8.7 5.1 2.5 3.5 5.8 5.6 1.6 10.6 

Global 3.2 1.7 1.6 0 0 0 0 5.9 

Source: Mapping Economic Linkages, a Pilot Survey, 2002. 


32 UWE (2002) Mapping economic linkages; a pilot survey. 

33 Jackson, M. and Plumridge, A. (2002) ‘So far so good. .’ The economy of the West of England, UWE. 

49


50 

3.10 Supply linkages with the rest of the region were found to be relatively small (Figure 

3.2); for example Exeter accounted for only 3% of total inputs for firms within the subregion, 

Gloucester and Cheltenham for around 6% and Plymouth for just over 1%. 

3.11 Most external links were found to be stronger with London and the SE region than to 

elsewhere in the SW. London was the second largest source of inputs for Avon; it 

accounted for 14% of all inputs for banking and finance, 15% for accounting and 

finance, 13% of marketing, advertising and design, and 11% for distribution and 

logistics. The other sub-regions within the SW, such as Dorset, North Devon, and 

Cornwall, also showed similar degrees of self-containment in terms of supplier linkages, 

and networks linking sub-regions within the SW were not much in evidence. 

Figure 3.2: Avon supply links 

London, 10.32 

Birmingham, 3.02 

Bournemouth/Southampton 1.86 

Swindon, 3.05 

Other UK, 6.96 

Other South West, 1.58 

Cardiff, 2.88 

Gloucester/Cheltenham, 5.79 

Plymouth, 1.02 

Exeter, 2.91 

Global, 2.10 

Source: Mapping economic linkages, a pilot survey, UEA, 2002. 

Local, 1.20 

Bristol/Bath, 58.32 

3.12 Whereas many of the supply-chain and procurement linkages have a strong subregional 

pattern, market links within the Avon area were found to be relatively small, 

accounting for only 20% of total market links, with the majority accounted for by the 

rest of the UK (52%) and Europe the rest of the world (28%), as shown in Figure 3.3. 

The analysis of output links for the other sub-regional economies in the region 

produced similar results.

Figure 3.3: Avon market links 

Rest of World, 13.85 

Europe, 14.22 

Whole of UK, 25.13 

Source: Mapping economic linkages, a pilot survey, UEA, 2002. 

3.13 As suggested above, inputs such as purchased components are likely to be sourced 

from non-local/regional markets. Overall, larger firms were found to have increasingly 

strong international rather than regional links. The degree of local/regional networks 

between businesses is equally dependant on the industry concerned. For example, 

companies within the aerospace industry, one of the region’s significant hightechnology 

sectors, are highly diversified and compete at an essentially global level. As 

a result their linkages both in supply and market terms are less likely to be found 

within the region. 

The SW aerospace sector 


Local, 0.00 

Bristol/Bath, 20.05 

Elsewhere in 

South West, 

17.69 

Other region of UK, 

9.05 

3.14 There are over 500 companies in the SW aerospace industry. These include global 

‘prime contractor’ companies such as Airbus, Rolls-Royce, Westland and Smiths and also 

smaller specialised supply-chain firms that play a key role in designing and 

manufacturing systems. The aerospace industry turnover is generated both by the civil 

and defence businesses and employs some 43,000 people 34 in engineering design, 

development and manufacturing. Airbus alone employs around 2,500 designers at its 

Bristol site. 

3.15 The SW Aerospace report, commissioned in 2002 by the West of England Aerospace 

Forum (WEAF) 35 and the SW Regional Development Agency (SWRDA), examined the 

sector dynamics and cluster mapping for SW aerospace 36. 

34 Mair, A, and UK Research Partnership (2002) South West Aerospace: the challenges ahead, the regional agenda. 

35 WEAF is a trade association for the SW aerospace industry and represents over 600 organisations. It is 

governed by a Board that includes representatives from Rolls Royce, Westland Helicopters, Airbus, Smiths 

Aerospace and Messier Dowty. 


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52 

3.16 The study investigated supply and market linkages of companies within the aerospace 

sector. Figure 3.4 shows the geographical spread of the prime contractor and 500 

supply-chain companies. The map clearly shows a large concentration of most of those 

companies along the M5 corridor, with others dispersed across the region. The 

concentration of companies around the Bristol area itself is especially noticeable. 

Figure 3.4: The geographical spread of aerospace companies in the SW 

Aerospace Suppliers 

District Boundaries 

County Boundary 

Primary Routes 

Motorway Routes 

0 km 20 km 50 km 

Scale 

REDRUTH 

WADEBRIDGE 

HELSTON 

ST AUSTELL 

TRURO 

FALMOUTH 

BUDE 

LAUNCESTON 

Source: The SW Aerospace Report, 2002 

BIDEFORD 

OKEHAMPTON 

PLYMOUTH 

BARNSTAPLE 

WESTON-SUPER-MARE 

EXETER 

BODMIN TAVISTOCK 

LISKEARD TORQUAY 

TAUNTON 

HONITON 

WELLS 

GLASTONBURY 

YEOVIL 

DORCHESTER 

TEWKESBURY 

GLOUCESTER 

SWINDON 

CHIPPENHAM 

BRISTOL 

MARLBOROUGH 

BATH 

DEVIZES 

FROME 

BLANDFORD FORUM 

WEYMOUTH 

CHELTENHAM 

STROUD 

Two main points can be emphasised about the linkages of these companies: 

TROWBRIDGE 

WARMINSTER 

BOURNEMOUTH 

l Traditional local and regional links have diminished over time, reflecting changes in 

structures within the aerospace industry. 

l Over 60% of aerospace products are exported to global aerospace markets. 

CIRENCESTER 

SALISBURY 

STOW-ON- 

THE-WOLD 

3.17 Changes in the global aerospace industry – which can be attributed mainly to the 

consolidation in defence aerospace companies, globalisation and strong international 

competition – have resulted in the consolidation of the industry with the growth of a 

small number of large companies with aerospace programmes driven through 

international partnerships. As a result, the regional foundations of the aerospace 

industry in the SW have gradually diminished over time and there has been a shift in 

emphasis from the more traditional local and regional linkages to national and 

international ones.

3.18 Larger aerospace prime contractor sites in the region now host several distinct 

‘businesses’ which have closer ties with sites in other regions and other countries than 

between them 37. For example, Rolls Royce, which has its headquarters in the region, 

has supply links with companies in Derby where Rolls Royce also has a major 

presence. It is estimated that only one quarter of second-tier purchasing by the region’s 

supply-chain companies stays in the SW. More importantly, aerospace products 

produced in the SW region are exported world-wide in both the civil and defence 

aerospace sectors. 

3.19 Most aerospace supply-chain companies also supply other advanced engineering 

sectors, creating broad technology spin-offs in addition to the multiplier effects 

generated through supply chain and salary spend activities. Furthermore, the industry 

has strong links with the universities of Bristol and Bath and the University of the West 

of England, reflected in the high volume of research in aerospace technology. 

Individual aerospace companies have links with WEAF, the regional support agency for 

the sector, largely through training programmes such as NVQs, apprenticeships and 

placements set up by the forum to enhance the skills of the workforce in association 

with service providers. The forum also safeguards the interests of smaller companies 

and supports them to form partnerships that improve their ability to compete in global 

markets. 

3.20 In summary, both in terms of supply chains and markets, the aerospace industry is one 

that operates within essentially national and increasingly international geographies. This 

is true for prime companies and supply chain companies alike, the latter facing 

increasing pressure to change in order to compete within global markets. However, the 

concentration of aerospace-related businesses within the SW, which reflects historical as 

much as contemporary market circumstances, has important knowledge-based 

implications for the competitiveness of the sector. This is reflected both in the strong 

links with local universities and research institutions, and in the collective benefits 

(through marketing, advocacy and information) that derive from the establishment of a 

representative organization like WEAF. To this extent, even for a ‘global’ sector like 

aerospace, links within the City-Region are important aspects of the competitiveness of 

the industry. 

The creative industries sector 


3.21 In the SW, there over 9,000 performing arts, music, visual arts and design businesses 

within the creative industries sector. In contrast to aerospace, the creative industries 

sector in the SW is predominantly comprised of small or ‘micro’ businesses that employ 

fewer than 10 people, and to a smaller extent (around 34%) of self-employed 

individuals. 

3.22 The Avon area has the largest share of the region’s employment in this sector, with 

around 30% of all employment in the creative industries in the SW accounted for by the 

sub-region. The largest concentration of employment is within Bristol itself (Table 3.2). 


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54 

Table 3.2: Employment in the creative industries sector in Avon 

Employment in Creative Industries in 2002 

Total % (of total employment) 

Bristol 8,953 3.7 

Bath & NES 3,851 4.8 

N.Somerset 1,813 2.7 

S.Gloucestershire 2,265 2.0 

Avon Total 

Source: Culture SW/SWRDA 

16,882 3.4 

3.23 Bristol is a popular destination for businesses in the creative industry sector which 

wish to relocate, particularly for London-based firms. A survey 38 of 400 businesses in the 

region revealed that the majority (60%) of those firms that had relocated had previously 

been based in London. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority (90%) of all the 

businesses surveyed have always been based in the region, although many of those 

have been operating for less than five years. 

3.24 Unlike the aerospace sector, the overall market linkages of businesses within the 

creative industries sector are overwhelmingly local and regional. The majority of sales 

within the local and regional market are made to individual consumers and to a smaller 

extent to the private sector and Arts sector. 

3.25 The supply linkages are even more predominantly local or sub-regional. This is true 

not just for the Avon sub-region but also for the other sub-regions in the SW where on 

average 68% of inputs are sourced from local/regional markets. Thus, the proportion 

of supplies that originates from outside the country is very small; for example for 

businesses based within the Avon area this was estimated at 4.5%. 

3.26 Linkages with universities and other educational institutions are less evident in the 

creative industries sector. Only 25% of businesses (of the 400 surveyed) had some 

links with educational establishments, mainly through teaching and placements. 

3.27 The small size (allied with the recent establishment) of most of the businesses 

means that the exchange of information of advice and of the stimulation of ideas is 

overwhelmingly done on an essentially face-to-face personal basis. Equally, much of 

the marketing and sales are achieved through word-of-mouth reputation. The sector is 

a prime example of the importance of social capital generated through dense networks 

of informal contact. For this reason, links with other related businesses and with 

individuals within the locality assume an especial salience in much of the creative 

industry sector. To this extent, the City-Region context is critically important to the 

competitiveness of the sector. 

3.28 There is, of course, a downside associated with the fragmentary and ‘disorganised’ 

nature of the sector since it is difficult for most of the small businesses to grow on the 

basis of achieving sales and marketing across wider geographical catchments. This is 

where the brokerage role of organizations such as the City’s Cultural Services 

Department becomes important. Interviewees made clear how alert the City is to this 

38 The survey was conducted for the Regional Mapping and Economic Impact Study of the Creative Industries 

commissioned by Culture SW/SWRDA in 2004.

okerage role. There is an implication for other regional or sub-regional bodies, 

especially SWERDA, that the size and economic impact of the creative industries sector 

is a key element in the Avon economy, but that it needs to be recognized as having 

requirements very different from those of ‘traditional’ business sectors. 

Public sector procurement 


3.29 Bristol City Council procures services from some 19,000 suppliers many of which are 

small- or medium-size businesses. The volume of procurement is large, estimated to be 

worth an annual £300 million. 

3.30 Bristol City Council’s procurement practices follow the Government’s Procurement 

Policy Guidelines and EU procurement laws. Driven by the government’s e-procurement 

target that all local authorities should be capable of trading electronically with suppliers 

by 2005, the Council has started to map its supply linkages. The mapping exercise aims 

to understand the impact of public-sector procurement on local economies and 

consequently to maximise effectiveness and value for money whilst at the same time 

ensuring local community benefits through contractual arrangements with its suppliers. 

3.31 The Council’s linkages with larger (over £10,000) and smaller (under £10,000) suppliers 

from an analysis of £292 million expenditure with the Council’s top 2500 creditors (by 

value) in the year 2003/04 demonstrate the importance of public procurement to the 

economy of the City-Region. Of the total £292m expenditure, £164 million related to 

organisations with a payment address within the Bristol (BS) postcode area. Smallervalue 

transactions are strongly concentrated in the sub-region, largely within the Bristol 

postcode area, and are predominantly concentrated within the SW region (Figure 3.5). 

Larger-value transactions also show a strong concentration in the Avon area, but are 

more widely scattered across the whole country from Birmingham, to Norwich, Oxford 

and London, to North Wales and South Wales, to York (Figure 3.6). Nevertheless, even 

for these larger transactions, the concentration in Avon is striking and the detailed 

pattern within the BS postcode area (Figure 3.7) shows high percentages in each of the 

main urban centres. 

55


56 

Figure 3.5: Bristol City Council procurement (under £10k) 

Sum of Total by Postcode 

Sector 

£9,500.00 to £45,969.00 

£7,800.00 to £9,499.00 

£5,002.00 to £7.799.00 

£2,800 to £5,001.00 

£850.00 to £2,799.00 

£10.00 to £849.00 

Copyright © 1988-2003 Microsoft Corp. and/or its suppliers. All rights reserved. 

© 2002 Navigation Technologies B.V. and its suppliers. All rights reserved. © Crown Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. Licence number 100025500 

Source: Bristol City Council 

Figure 3.6: Bristol City Council procurement (over £10k) 

Sum of Total by Postcode Sector 

£520,000.00 to £13,188,870.00 

£148,000.00 to £519,999.00 

£74,440.00 to £147,999.00 

£37,100.00 to £74,439.00 

£20,520.00 to £37,099.00 

£10,030.00 to £20,519.00 



Source: Bristol City Council

Figure 3.7: Bristol City Council procurement (over £10k) within BS postcode 

Sum of Total by Postcode Sector 

£2,500,000.00 to £13,188,900.00 

£1,040,000.00 to £2,499,999.00 

£585,000.00 to £1,039,999.00 

£197,000.00 to £584,999.00 

£86,500.00 to £196,999.00 

£13,500.00 to £86,499.00 



Source: Bristol City Council 

Bristol Port And Bristol International Airport 


3.32 Bristol Port consists of two ports, Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Dock, located to the 

north and south of the River Avon respectively. It is owned by a private company, First 

Corporate Shipping Limited, who purchased a 150-year lease from Bristol City Council 

in 1991. Since then, the tonnage has increased to 10.9 million tonnes and annual 

revenue rose to over £63m. Following a £330 million investment in the dock estate and 

the port, Bristol Port has become a highly productive and technically advanced port and 

has strengthened its position among its European counterparts. Its attractiveness to 

customers and investors is attributed, among other things, to its locational advantages 

that enable economical distribution of cargoes to the rest of the country. This is greatly 

helped by Bristol’s excellent connections to the motorway system. Figure 3.8 shows the 

motorway connections of the port. Just under 37 million people (over 63%) of the 

country’s population live within 250 kilometres of the port. Within easy reach are large 

consumer markets in the Midlands and London, SW and South Wales. 

3.33 The transport links between Bristol Port and the rest of the country are clearly highly 

significant. Both Avonmouth and Portbury have their own dedicated motorway 

junctions on the M5 – just seven miles from the M4 interchange and four miles from the 

second Severn Crossing. Also, both Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Dock are rail 

connected; Avonmouth has direct links to South Wales and to Great Western mainlines. 

57


58 

Figure 3.8: The reach of Bristol Port 

Source: Bristol Port Company Prospectus 

3.34 The port has mainly expanded through business with international companies, a large 

number of which are car manufacturers, such as Daewoo, Daimler Chrysler, Mitsubishi 

and Toyota. Vehicle cargo in 2002 accounted for approximately 7% of the total tonnage, 

with Bristol-based car importers serving the national market 39. 

3.35 By far the largest cargo type in 2002 was coal, which accounted for around 36% of the 

total tonnage. Coal is transported from the port by rail to three power stations in 

Didcot, Aberthaw and Rugeley. In addition to coal and vehicles, the port also handles 

oil products which serve the local area, and forest products which serve smaller parts of 

the hinterland. The geographical area served by the port therefore depends essentially 

on the type of cargo involved. 

3.36 The port has some local links, reflected in its trade with businesses that provide goods 

and services such as office support, landscape maintenance and portable 

accommodation. Linkages with construction companies within the sub-region have also 

been evident in terms of the construction of port facilities, transport company offices 

and yards and plants. However, there are relatively few locally-based industries which 

depend on the port. 

3.37 While the distribution of imported goods is, as expected, essentially national rather than 

sub-regional, the employment associated with port activities has an important local 

impact. Table 3.3 shows the total number of people by employment category supported 

39 The survey was conducted for the Regional Mapping and Economic Impact Study of the Creative Industries 

commissioned by Culture SW/SWRDA in 2004.

y the port. Overall, an estimated 7,660 jobs are estimated to be supported in the subregion 

including multiplier effects. The Economic Assessment study 40 undertaken in 

2004 calculated the total number of jobs within the boundaries of the Port Estate at 

Royal Portbury Dock and Avonmouth at 5,359. 

Table 3.3: Port employment by type 

Employment in and/or dependent on Bristol Port 

Port Operations 735 

Transport Services 1,508 

Port-related Industries 2,246 

Suppliers of Goods and Services 966 

Construction Employment 483 

Port-related Direct Employment 5,938 

Multiplier Effects 1,722 

Total Port-related Employment 

Source: Bristol Port Economic Assessment 

7,660 

3.38 A survey carried out in the 209 port-based businesses also addressed the origin of 

employees 41. Table 3.4 shows the proportions of employees that live in the four 

authorities of the sub-region and elsewhere. As expected, the majority of employees 

live locally. 

Table 3.4: Bristol Port employment base 

Local authority % of total employees 

Bath 8 

Bristol 27 

North Somerset 44 

South Gloucester 13 

Elsewhere 

Source: Bristol Port Economic Assessment 

8 


3.39 Despite the port’s significance to the regional and national economy, its direct linkages 

with the local economy are therefore relatively small. The economic assessment of the 

port showed that cargoes largely supply other than local areas and non-local consumer 

markets. Nevertheless, the port has strong linkages with the sub-region in terms of 

employment; with port-based businesses drawing their employment base 

overwhelmingly from the four districts, with the majority drawn from the immediately 

local area. 

3.40 Bristol International airport, located 7 miles south-west of Bristol, is the fourth 

largest regional airport and one of the fastest growing in the country. In 2004, 

passenger traffic was some 4.5 million, with projections for 2005 for 5 million 

passengers. Compared with other regional airports, Bristol has amongst the largest 

proportion of business traffic. Around 64% of large companies based within the region 

are frequent users of low-cost flights. 

40 Roger Tym and Partners (2004) Bristol Port Economic Assessment, South West of England Regional 

Development Agency. 

41 However, only 24% of businesses surveyed provided information on the geographic origin of their directly 

employed staff. 

59


60 

3.41 Bristol flights carry approximately one million more passengers than all of the SW 

airports and South Wales combined and draw passengers from a wide catchment area 

that covers the ten counties in the Avon area and elsewhere in the SW (Table 3.5). 

Table 3.5: Bristol International Airport passenger flows by county 

Bristol Airport Catchment Analysis for 2003/04 

Business Leisure 

South West 000’s % 000’s % 

Avon 425,183 55.0 1,333,401 42.6 

Cornwall 9,233 1.2 136,563 4.4 

Devon 75,362 9.7 422,695 13.5 

Dorset 10,350 1.3 49,838 1.6 

Gloucestershire 35,246 4.6 159,280 5.1 

Somerset 72,685 9.4 336,609 10.8 

Wiltshire 51,862 6.7 210,871 6.7 

South West Total 

South Wales 

679,921 87.9 2,649,258 84.7 

Dyfed 1,720 0.2 32,543 1.0 

Gwent 24,793 3.2 106,090 3.4 

Mid Glamorgan 2,460 0.3 84,123 2.7 

South Glamorgan 22,585 2.9 84,497 2.7 

West Glamorgan 12,015 1.6 45,277 1.4 

South Wales Total 63,573 8.2 352,530 11.3 

Other areas 29,937 3.9 126,345 4.0 

Total 

Source: CAA Survey 

773,430 3,128,133 

3.42 In 2003-4, out of a total of 3.9 million passengers who travelled from Bristol airport, 

1.76 million originated from within the former County of Avon. This represents over 

half of all business passengers and slightly less than half of all leisure passengers in that 

year. From the table above, it is also noticeable that there is a large passenger flow 

from South Wales, particularly from Gwent and South Glamorgan. 

3.43 The smaller numbers of passengers travelling from other counties within the SW region 

largely reflect poor transport links with Bristol. For example, despite being the region’s 

largest airport, Bristol’s share of the market in Dorset relative to other regional airports 

for 2000 and 2003 was only 2.1% and 4.4% respectively, largely reflecting the poor 

transport links between Bristol and Dorset. Equally, for some areas surrounding Bristol, 

road links are not very effective; for example accessibility to the airport from Wiltshire 

is constrained by the need to travel through Bristol city centre, resulting in longer 

journeys. 

3.44 Tables 3.6 and 3.7 show Bristol airport’s market share in 2003 for passengers travelling 

from the SW region and South Wales. Around two-thirds of the total Avon and half of 

Somerset passengers travelled from Bristol airport in 2003 with the remainder mainly 

travelling from London airports. In contrast less than one third of Wiltshire and 

Gloucestershire passengers travelled from Bristol. Overall, Bristol airport captured 35% 

of the region’s passengers.

Table 3.6: Bristol International airport’s market share in the SW 

2003 Market share by county-South West passengers only 


Avon Devon Somerset 

Passengers %Share Passengers %Share Passengers %Share 

Bournemouth 391 * 2,356 0.2 2,202 0.3 

Bristol 1,759,516 59.5 498,057 34.0 409,295 47.8 

Cardiff 61,384 2.1 18,817 1.3 13,649 1.6 

Exeter 10,620 0.4 231,669 15.8 24,799 2.9 

London Gatwick 322,996 10.9 198,172 13.5 148,286 17.3 

London Heathrow 603,150 20.4 383,364 26.2 178,023 20.8 

Luton 17,940 0.6 30,389 2.1 13,745 1.6 

Manchester 12,124 0.4 6,308 0.4 6,035 0.7 

Southampton 7,197 0.2 3,295 0.2 477 0.1 

London Stansted 109,518 3.7 64,317 4.4 43,592 5.1 

Birmingham 50,541 1.7 27,570 1.9 15,726 1.8 

2,955,376 100 1,464,314 100 855,829 100 

Wiltshire Gloucestershire Cornwall 


Bournemouth 12,023 0.9 151 * 158 * 

Bristol 263,007 20.1 194,526 17.1 145,796 29.8 

Cardiff 12,921 1.0 22,452 2.0 12,037 2.5 

Exeter 1,568 0.1 1,508 0.1 73,832 15.1 



Luton 26,006 2.0 12,302 1.1 5,814 1.2 

Manchester 2,164 0.2 31,851 2.8 6,500 1.3 

Southampton 42,056 3.2 6,673 0.6 507 0.1 


Birmingham 45,039 3.4 259,142 22.8 7,435 1.5 

1,307,482 100 1,138,511 100 489,002 100 

Dorset SWTotal 

Passengers %Share Passengers %Share 

Bournemouth 174,410 12.8 191,691 2.0 

Bristol 60,188 4.4 3,330,385 34.8 

Cardiff 628 * 141,888 1.5 

Exeter 10,721 0.8 354,719 3.7 

London Gatwick 356,714 26.3 1,603,293 16.8 

London Heathrow 508,114 37.4 2,690,088 28.1 

Luton 36,527 2.7 142,723 1.5 

Manchester 3,636 0.3 68,618 0.7 

Southampton 136,623 10.1 196,828 2.1 

London Stansted 68,619 5.1 441,011 4.6 

Birmingham 2,569 0.2 408,022 4.3 


1,358,751 100 9,569,266 100 

61


62 

Table 3.7: Bristol International airport’s market share in S.Wales 

2003 Market share by county-South West and South Wales passengers only 

Gwent Mid Glamorgan South Glamorgan 


Bournemouth 0 0 0 0 0 0 

Bristol 130,883 20.1 86,583 10.3 107,082 10.6 

Cardiff 219,423 33.6 474,215 56.2 558,532 55.5 

Exeter 837 0.1 1,083 0.1 754 0.1 



Luton 4,305 0.7 4,719 0.6 12,196 1.2 

Manchester 31,328 4.8 2,176 0.3 4,672 0.5 

Southampton 1,074 0.2 964 0.1 3,117 0.3 


Birmingham 37,039 5.7 15,565 1.8 12,633 1.3 

652,110 100 843,440 100 1,006,412 100 

West Glamorgan Dyfed S.Wales Total 


Bournemouth 0 0 144 * 144 * 

Bristol 57,292 11.6 34,263 9.4 416,103 12.4 

Cardiff 256,030 51.7 137,813 37.6 1,646,012 48.9 

Exeter 834 0.2 651 0.2 4,160 0.1 



Luton 10,026 2.0 0 0 31,246 0.9 

Manchester 729 0.1 14,083 3.8 52,988 1.6 

Southampton 605 0.1 841 0.2 6,600 0.2 


Birmingham 10,153 2.1 34,105 9.3 109,496 3.3 


495,109 100 366,431 100 3,363,504 100 

3.45 Bristol airport is also one of the largest employers in the region, with over 2,500 

employees and it contributes annually over £40 million to the local economy 42. Future 

growth in passenger traffic and new scheduled services to New York starting in May are 

expected to create further jobs and boost tourism across the region; the New York 

service alone is expected to generate over £12 million to the regional economy. 

3.46 The majority of people who work in the airport are residents of North Somerset and 

South Bristol with large numbers living in the Filtwood and Hartcliffe wards. Indeed, a 

high proportion of the employment base, especially the lower-paid and lower-skilled 

jobs in the catering, retail businesses and baggage handling services, live in the 

immediately surrounding areas and small towns and villages. 

42 Bristol International Facts and Figures, Feb 2005.

The housing market 


3.47 The Avon area has a buoyant housing market 43 with Bristol and Bath being the most 

sought-after districts for owner-occupiers. Popular locations include the historic centre 

of Bath, Clifton and Redland and the waterfront areas in central Bristol. Other popular 

locations include villages to the North of Bristol and South Gloucestershire which 

benefit from good commuting links to the employment centres of Bristol, Bath and also 

Birmingham. Demand for private-rented accommodation, mainly driven by the student 

population and young professionals, is concentrated in the areas of Clifton, Filton, 

Redland and Cotham, St Andrews, Bradley Stoke and the city centres of Bristol and 

Bath. 

3.48 Outside Avon, the Wiltshire and Monmouthshire housing markets are increasingly 

playing an important role within the wider Avon housing market due to increased 

commuter flows to Bristol and Bath from those areas. Demand for housing in Swindon 

and in rural villages close to the Severn crossings is expected to increase in the future. 

3.49 As outlined in Chapter 2, the evidence on household moves shows that the core of the 

sub-regional housing market comprises the four unitary authorities of Bristol, South 

Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath. The DTZ housing study examined actual 

movements between authorities in the sub-region and surrounding districts during the 

year ending June 2002 and found that the majority of people who move out of Bristol 

(85%) and South Gloucestershire (76%) stay within the Avon area, with the rest moving 

to adjacent authorities outside Avon. On the other hand, Bath and North Somerset have 

much lower proportions; with 46%, and 58% respectively moving within the Avon area. 

3.50 The TTWA analysis showed that the Avon housing market is highly self-contained with 

91.5% of all those who worked in the Avon area living in the same area. However, 

since 1995, employment growth in Bristol, patterns of out-migration from the urban 

core and longer journeys to work have expanded the existing TTWA further into 

surrounding areas in Sedgemoor, Mendip, Wiltshire and Stroud. 

3.51 The DTZ study also examined the destination of household moves from within the 

Avon area in the year to 2002 (Local Health Authority Movement) and found that an 

overwhelming 72% of households move within Avon. Moves outside the Avon area 

were less than 6% to any given local authority; for example, 6% moved to Mendip, 6% 

to Sedgemoor and 4% to each of the West Wiltshire, North Wiltshire and Stroud. 

3.52 Overall, housing market relationships with authorities to the south of Avon (rather than 

to the north) are stronger, because Avon acts as the main employment centre for these 

areas and also because of the poor transport links to other parts of the SW. On the 

other hand, the housing markets of North Wiltshire and Stroud are slightly less linked to 

the Avon area because there are other employment centres such as Swindon and 

Gloucester and Cheltenham that exert competing influence on their housing markets. 

3.53 Although links with the housing markets of south east Wales are considered to be 

relatively weak, the likelihood of their future integration with the Avon housing market 

is increasing. Given the growing pressure on housing affordability that the Avon area 

43 DTZ (2004) West of England Sub-regional Study, Background Report of Consultations. 

63


64 

faces, and also employment growth projections (estimated by Cambridge Econometrics 

to be as high as 1.4% per annum) commuting from south east Wales is expected to 

grow. 

Service patterns 

3.54 A variety of service patterns are explored in the following section, with examples drawn 

from retail services, culture and entertainment, health and education. 

Retail services 

3.55 Cribbs Causeway, to the north of Bristol (but within the administrative district of South 

Gloucestershire), and Broadmead in the centre of Bristol, together with Bath, are 

amongst the most important shopping centres in the SW. Cribbs Causeway located off 

Junction 17 of the M5 is a 750,000 square-feet retail centre with 135 stores and 17 cafes 

and restaurants on a split-level 1200-seat food court. Prudential Property Investment 

Managers Ltd, the largest owner of shopping centres in the UK, own 70% of the centre. 

Since it opened, the Mall has drawn over 35 million visitors and can experience up to 

10,000 visitors at any given time. 

3.56 The Mall carries out regular monitoring exercises to identify its customer base. Overall, 

its customers fall within two broad categories; those who live locally and travel on 

average 20 minutes, and those who travel 1 1 ⁄2 hours or more. There are very good road 

links through the excellent motorway connections. Significant numbers of shoppers 

come from Cheltenham, Swindon, from the belt of the SW connected to Exeter via the 

M5 motorway, and from south east Wales linked by the M4 motorway (Figure 3.9). 

3.57 What is striking from the distribution of shoppers is the extent of the area that is 

captured by a major retail centre such as Cribbs Causeway, whose catchment is far 

wider than the labour or housing market City-Region boundaries explored earlier.

Figure 3.9: Cribbs Causeway shopper penetration, 2003 

Source: Cribbs Causeway 


% Penetration by 

Postcode Sector 

75 - 100% 

50 - 74% 

25 - 49% 

5 - 24% 


66 

Cultural and entertainment services 

3.60 Bristol acts as the centre of culture and entertainment for a wide catchment area. The 

Avon area has 21 theatres, concert halls and public galleries, and another 45 private art 

galleries 44. The Old Vic, the Arnolfini and Colston Hall are three of the eight theatres, 

concert halls and public galleries within Bristol itself. The Arnolfini has the largest 

numbers of visitors of all Bristol’s arts organisations. In 2001/2002, admissions were 

522,533 45 drawing a large number of visitors (over 25%) from outside the Bristol area 

and approximately 1.5% from overseas. 

3.61 An example of the ‘reach’ of major cultural events in illustrated in Figure 3.10 which 

shows the ticket sales for events at Bristol’s Colston Hall for the period 2003-05. 

Strikingly, virtually every district in England had at least one person visiting the Hall 

over this period. However, the significant catchment shows a wide spread across much 

of the South West and South Wales. To an extent the pattern is clearly influenced by the 

accessibility provided by the motorway connections of the M5 to the south west and 

north and the M4 to South Wales. 

44 Boddy, M. Urban Transformation and Urban Governance, p 55, UWE. 

45 Kelly, A. (2002) The Economic, Social and Cultural Impact of Arnolfini, UWE.


Figure 3.10: Ticket bookings for Colston Hall, 2003-05 (shown per 10,000 population of 

destination districts – total number 61,607) 

Colston Hall 

Bookings 2003-5 

250. to 600 

50. to 250 

5. to 50 

1. to 5 

0.01 to 1 

3.62 The West of England Partnership has created a sub-regional group on culture, leisure 

and tourism to ensure consistency and joint planning between the four authorities, even 

though joint working is as yet in early stages. Each of the four authorities has its own 

resources for cultural activities and its own cultural strategies in place. However, the 

Bristol Conference & Tourism Bureau works closely with South West Tourism, Bristol 

International Airport, Bath Tourism Plus and South Gloucestershire Council in 

developing projects to enhance the tourism sector. The Bureau, was established in 

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68 

partnership with Bristol Chamber of Commerce and Bristol City Council to ensure the 

support and development of businesses operating in the tourism, hospitality, culture 

and leisure sectors in the sub-region. 

3.63 In Bristol, the Cultural Development Partnership (BCDP) – a partnership between the 

Arts Council, Bristol Council and Business West – was established to promote cultural 

developments within the city. The partnership has instigated a number of projects such 

as Bristol Legible City, At-Bristol Millennium and the Digital Arts Development Agency 

by bringing together public and private resources. 

3.64 At a regional level, Culture SW, established in 1999, is one of eight regional agencies 

established by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport aiming to promote the 

cultural and creative industries through the development of a regional cultural strategy. 

The strategy seeks to enable the improvement of the quality of cultural infrastructure 

available and range of cultural activities offered by the region. 

Health services 

3.65 There are two hospital trusts within the Bristol LA: United Bristol Health Care NHS 

Trust, which covers central Bristol and includes the teaching hospital; and North Bristol 

Trust, comprising Frenchay and Southmead. There is also a district general hospital in 

North Somerset. The three acute hospitals serve the City of Bristol, South 

Gloucestershire and North Somerset. Patients are referred to the hospitals from the 

Primary Care Trusts (PCTs). The four PCTs feed into the hospitals made up of the two 

Bristol PCTs, and North Somerset and South Gloucestershire PCTs. The two latter are 

coterminous with the LA boundaries. 

3.66 Approximately 80% of hospital patients come from the four PCTs. The remainder are 

drawn from a very wide radius that includes Bath and South Wales. The hospitals 

provide two main services; accident and emergency, mainly for the local area, and 

tertiary services (specialist services like brain, cancer, burns) for a much wider 

catchment area. 

3.67 The Bristol Health Services Plan – jointly produced by Bristol North PCT, South 

Gloucestershire PCT, Bristol South and West PCT, North Somerset PCT, the North 

Bristol NHS Trust and United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust – has developed plans for 

integrated developments across the whole area. The modernisation of health services 

will involve a transfer of services out of acute hospital sites into Community venues, a 

£70 million investment for Bristol Royal Infirmary, a £50 million investment for a new 

adult cardiothoracic hospital, new cardiology facilities in North Bristol/South 

Gloucestershire and a £295 million and £340 million investment for a modern 

“acute/emergency” hospital on one of the Frenchay and Southmead sites together with 

new community hospitals with in-patient beds on both sites. 

3.68 The local impact of employment in health services is clearly considerable. Table 3.8 

shows the distribution of employees of the Frenchway and Southmead hospitals by 

broad employment category 46. Over 95% (or 2,307 out of the 2,394) of all staff who 

work in administration and clerical or ancillary occupations, as health care assistants or 

maintenance and support staff, live within the Bristol and South Gloucestershire areas. 

46 All figures have been taken from the North Bristol and South Gloucestershire Option Assessment (2004).

Similarly, the proportion of nursing staff that live outside Bristol and South 

Gloucestershire is only just over 10%. As expected, the proportion of medical and 

professional staff that lives outside Bristol is significantly higher, at over 30%. 

Table 3.8: Frenchway and Southmead hospitals’ employment base 

Hospital Staff Residence by Employment Category 

Administration Nursing Medical Professionals Other Total 

Bristol* 835 1,569 425 892 1,472 5,192 

Bath 5 24 20 26 1 74 

Somerset** 8 45 4 24 4 86 

Gloucestershire 21 73 23 54 21 190 

Other 14 59 71 64 13 221 

Total 883 1,770 543 1,060 1,511 5,763 

*Includes parts of South Gloucestershire, **Includes BS19,22-29 (Weston). 

Source: North Bristol NHS Trust47 3.69 Historically, health services were structured under the Avon Health Authority. Currently, 

the Bristol boundaries are seen as irrelevant from the main hospital’s point of view as 

there is no obvious boundary between Bristol and South Gloucestershire. The only 

main relevance is that PCTs are coterminous with the surrounding LAs. At present, the 

three LAs are represented on a joint scrutiny committee, overseeing health issues. 

Future restructuring is likely to organise the PCTs around populations of around 

1 million that will allow the integration of Bristol and the other two LAs. 

Education services and graduate destinations 


3.70 There are six Learning and Skills Councils (LSCs) in the SW region, Bournemouth 

Dorset and Poole, Devon and Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Somerset, West of England, 

and Wiltshire and Swindon. The West of England LSC covers Bath, Bristol, North 

Somerset and South Gloucestershire and oversees funding of education and training 

(other than higher education) activities for people over the age of 16. 

3.71 The LSC is responsible for planning and funding FE activities, workforce development 

activities, including on-the-job training and adult and community learning. In essence, 

the LSC provides resources for areas where there is an identified need for extra 

provision of learning and training. This demand-driven approach does not really follow 

a City-Region geography and a uniform procedure throughout the institutions it deals 

with would not make sense since “…(the LSC) cannot force Colleges to run courses 

they don’t want to”. 

3.72 While the LSC works to other than a City-Region geometry, the universities in Avon are 

clearly significant elements of the sub-regional area. Table 3.9 shows the home 

addresses and the first graduate destinations of students graduating from the Bath Spa 

University College, the University of Bath, the University of Bristol and the University of 

the West of England in 2001/2. The table shows the first-job destination and the home 

origin of HE students, shown as absolute numbers, percentages of the total, and per 

100,000 population (as of 2001). 

47 North Bristol and South Gloucestershire Option Assessment, 2004. 

69


70 

Table 3.9: Bristol students by region and conurbation, 2001/02 

Home origin and first job destinations 

Numbers % of totalPer 100K pop 

3.73 The combined HE institutions draw their students predominantly from the local region; 

around 45% from the SW region and 25% from Avon itself 48. However, the most 

significant feature of the table is the comparison between the home origin and the job 

destinations of students. With the exception of Tyneside (which has small numbers), 

only Avon, the South West and London have higher proportions and higher per capita 

percentages of first-job destinations than of home origins. This suggests that the 

universities create a net import of graduate talent to the local area and is a measure of 

the skills benefit associated with having local HE institutions within the area. 

The governance context 

Home Home Home 

Jobs origins Jobs origins Jobs origins 

Conurbation 

Tyneside 16 10 0.2 0.1 1.5 0.9 

Gr. Manchester 69 77 1.0 1.0 2.8 3.1 

Merseyside 32 61 0.5 0.8 2.4 4.5 

Avon 2,603 1,909 38.8 24.6 264.6 194.0 

W. Midlands 116 140 1.7 1.8 4.5 5.5 

South Yorkshire 21 31 0.3 0.4 1.7 2.5 

West Yorkshire 

Region 

(excluding conurbation) 

37 65 0.6 0.8 1.8 3.1 

NE 13 24 0.2 0.3 0.9 1.7 

NW 64 156 1.0 2.0 2.2 5.4 

SW 1,133 1,564 16.9 20.1 28.7 39.7 

WM 129 388 1.9 5.0 4.8 14.3 

YH 38 78 0.6 1.0 2.4 4.8 

EM 176 235 2.6 3.0 4.2 5.6 

East 246 497 3.7 6.4 4.6 9.2 

London 902 578 13.4 7.4 12.6 8.1 

SE 816 1,378 12.2 17.7 10.2 17.2 

N.Ire 10 36 0.2 0.5 0.6 2.1 

Scotland 45 71 0.7 0.9 0.9 1.4 

Wales 

Source: HESA 

249 469 3.7 6.0 8.6 16.2 

3.74 Until the abolition of metropolitan councils, the four district authorities in the Greater 

Bristol area had a somewhat fraught and uneasy relationship with the metropolitan 

Avon authority. This left an historical residue of suspicion for some years, but Bristol 

and the other three authorities in the sub-region have subsequently shown considerable 

48 Although there are expected differences between the different universities; for example, Bristol has a far higher 

proportion of students from outside the local area.

political willingness to operate collectively and to develop shared objectives. Some of 

the informal partnerships have already been noted above in relation to cultural services 

and to the aerospace industry and the port. 

3.75 The Joint Strategic Planning and Transportation Committee, formed in 1996, a joint 

structure of the four authorities, is an example of cross-authority collaborative working. 

More recently, the four authorities have also been seeking to address transport issues 

jointly and have commissioned the Greater Bristol Transport Study due to be released 

later this year. 

3.76 The most significant recent development is the creation of the West of England 

Partnership – referred to by many interviewees as “the local strategic partnership” for 

the City-Region. This consists of the four authorities and other social, economic and 

environmental partners. The Partnership aims to ensure future prosperity for the subregion, 

by tackling a range of issues – including transport, housing, economic 

development, social inclusion, culture, leisure and tourism – through joint working. The 

Partnership has a wide representation on its Board including three councillors from 

each of the four authorities, and representatives from the public and private sector such 

as the University of Bristol, the NHS Trust, Business West and observers from 

Government Office (GOSW) and SWRDA 49. In any such coalition of districts one might 

anticipate a degree of unease as between the core city authority and the peripheral 

districts. However there appears to be considerable enthusiasm for the partnership on 

the part of the two more ‘rural’ districts of North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. 

Many of the examples of partnerships noted above – for example, those concerned 

with business and enterprise and with cultural services – are also developing Avon-wide 

strategies. Such coalitions are clearly an important response to all of the evidence about 

the functional role of the whole Avon area. 

3.77 Despite the wide recognition of the significance of the establishment of the West of 

England Partnership, some interviewees were sceptical about its strategic capacity and 

its ability to overcome past tensions. Bristol has historically suffered from uneasy 

relationships with its hinterland, and political tensions and conservatism have led to the 

abandonment of joint projects with the other authorities in the sub-region – a recent 

example being the opposition to a metro system that would have linked Cribbs 

Causeway (in South Gloucestershire) with the centre of Bristol. While having a visible 

presence in many partnerships, Bristol has historically tended to maintain its autonomy 

and independence from its surrounding districts. Nevertheless, the auguries for the 

Partnership look promising and there is evidence of a change of thinking and of strong 

leadership both at an individual and collective level which will be essential for this new 

vehicle to work effectively. 

Conclusion 


3.78 The Greater Bristol example has shown that the combination of the four authorities of 

the Avon area is merely a minimal definition of the spatial extent of the Greater Bristol 

City-Region. This is true for the housing market, the labour market, and many elements 

49 Board membership comprises representatives from: the four district authorities of Bath, Bristol, North Somerset 

and South Gloucester; the neighbouring authorities of Gloucestershire County Council, Somerset County 

Council and Wiltshire County Council; the social and economic partners of Envolve, North Bristol HNS Trust, 

Business West, Greater Bristol Foundation and Bristol University; and, as observers, SWERDA and GOSW. 

71


72 

of the business supply market. It is clear that the area comprising the four unitary 

authorities exhibits a relatively high level of self-containment in terms of housing and 

overall business supply linkages, although the latter vary significantly across sectors. 

Firms are likely to procure services such as advertising, marketing, design, recruitment 

and training services, and office supplies from within the sub-region. Indeed, for these 

types of services proximity is an important factor since it gives the advantage of face-toface 

contact and cost effectiveness. 

3.79 The importance that firms place on the sub-regional market in terms of labour supply is 

also evident. The geographical spread of the employment base of individual companies 

varies and depends upon the location of the company. However, there is clearly a 

distinction between the distribution of professional workers and that of unskilled 

workers. The locational profiles of employees of the port, airport and hospitals provide 

good examples of this; the majority of lower-skilled workers live locally whereas 

professionals/ managers (for example, doctors) are more likely to live outside local 

areas. 

3.80 On the other hand, the extent of geographical spread in terms of business outputs is 

very diverse and dependent on the size and sector of the firm. Local and regional links 

for companies within key growth sectors such as aerospace have diminished. By and 

large, most large businesses now export their products to national and global markets. 

Accessibility to these markets also determines the geographical reach of companies in 

terms of goods and services. Nevertheless, even for large businesses in the aerospace 

sector, linkages between local firms and contacts with local universities are important in 

maintaining competitive edge. 

3.81 Conversely, businesses within the creative industries sector are more likely to find their 

customers as well as to procure supplies from local and sub-regional markets. Their 

small size and the nature of the work of these businesses requires them to build on 

networks with other businesses from the local area to allow them to grow. Here, even 

more than in many sectors, face-to-face contact and informal networks – the density of 

social capital – are crucial ingredients of business success. 

3.82 The City-Region benefits from easy access to national and international markets having 

both airport and port facilities and good access to the national motorway network and 

rail services. However, as cited by most interviewees, it suffers from poor internal 

transport links and poor links to areas on its south and west that restrict the movement 

of passengers and goods and services. For example, Bristol airport’s market share in 

terms of total passengers is disproportionately small from South West counties such as 

Dorset that have poor transport links with Bristol. Traffic congestion and long journey 

times are clearly important constraints that hinder passenger movements. 

3.83 The strong links between London and Bristol may be also attributed in part, to the 

good transport links between the two cities. Proximity, good motorway links and the 

high-speed rail links between Bristol with London have played an important role in 

maintaining networks between Bristol and London. As has been outlined, London is the 

second largest source of inputs for Avon businesses, and Bristol has continued to be a 

popular destination for London firms wishing to relocate. Businesses within the Bristol 

City-Region are more likely to procure financial, accounting and legal services from 

London than from other areas in the SW. Not unrelated is the large growth in the 

financial services sector in Bristol City-Region itself; over the last three decades a large 

number of London-based banks and insurance services have relocated to the area.


3.84 Evidence from the Census TTW areas, NHSCR and Census household movements also 

reflect a high level of self-containment for the City-Region housing market. However, as 

outlined earlier, there is a high probability of an accelerating growth in the links with 

the southern and eastern hinterlands outside Avon and with south east Wales. Future 

employment growth and increased journeys to work combined with growing problems 

of housing affordability are expected to contribute to an expansion of the Avon housing 

market. 

3.85 Some of the service links show very extensive spatial catchments. This is true not only 

of the pull of major retail centres such as Cribbs Causeway, but also of the cultural offer 

of major theatre and concert venues in Bristol. 

3.86 The accumulated evidence suggests that the City-Region is if anything more extensive 

than the area of the four Avon authorities. Increasingly, links with adjacent areas are 

growing stronger. This could be greatly to the benefit of the area since an important 

consideration in developing strategies for the economic competitiveness of the City- 

Region must be the relatively small size of the population base of Greater Bristol. By 

the standards of other English conurbations, its population of about one million is very 

small. Some of our interviewees were conscious that this meant that the local market 

and supply links may lack the potential for rich local linkages that would be found with 

a critical mass associated with a larger conurbation. 

73

74 

CHAPTER 4 

The Greater Manchester 

City-Region 

4.1 The Greater Manchester City-Region has been defined for the Manchester City-Region 

Development Programme (CRDP) as the cities of Manchester and Salford, the 

metropolitan boroughs of Stockport, Tameside, and Trafford (Greater Manchester South) 

and Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Wigan (GM North) as well as the local 

authority districts of High Peak, Congleton, Macclesfield and Warrington 50. This 

definition is drawn from the travel-to-work area of the core city, reflecting the strong 

logic of a commuter-catchment definition of the City-Region. The inclusion of districts 

outside the Greater Manchester boundaries to the south and east conforms with our 

exploration of TTW areas in Chapter 2. Figure 4.1 illustrates the geography of the CRDP 

travel-to-work areas of Manchester, Wigan, Bolton and Rochdale and their fit with 

Greater Manchester. 

Figure 4.1: CRDP travel-to-work areas, Greater Manchester 

Source: Greater Manchester Economic Assessment Executive Report 2004, Manchester Enterprises, based on 1991 

TTWAs 

50 Manchester Enterprises (2005) Manchester City-Region Development Programme – Pre-public consultation draft. 

Key 

Greater Manchester District 

TTWA Areas

4.2 The heart of the Manchester City-Region is the conurbation of Greater Manchester 

(Figure 4.2). Manchester City has a population of 428,000, while the Greater Manchester 

area has a population of 2.51m. Between 1992 and 2002, Greater Manchester 

experienced population loss, particularly in the more industrial areas such as Salford, 

although this has begun to be reversed since 1997. 

Figure 4.2: Greater Manchester 

Key 

NUTS 3 Area 

Local Authority Boundary 

Rail 

Motorway 

Trunk Road 

Airport 

Metrolink 

Source: Greater Manchester Economic Assessment Executive Report 2004, Manchester Enterprises 

Economic linkages 


4.3 Greater Manchester, like other northern British cities, is well advanced in its transition to 

a ‘post-industrial conurbation’. For example, the number of employees in engineering 

and construction contracted by 34,300 between 1998 and 2002. In the same period 

financial and professional services employees grew by 30,600 – an increase of 24.1% 51 

(Table 4.1). Nevertheless, the legacy of manufacturing in Greater Manchester means that 

the sector still has 7,800 workplaces employing nearly a fifth of the workforce, and is 

the third largest broad employment sector. 

51 Manchester Enterprises (2004) Greater Manchester Economic Assessment Executive Report, , p 7. 

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Table 4.1: Key sector employment in Greater Manchester, 2002 

GM Total GM Total Change Employees Share of NW Sector 

Workplaces Employees 1998 to 2002 Employment (2002) 

Key Sectors (’000s) (’000s) (’000s) (%) (%) 

Engineering & Manufacturing 7.6 159.5 -34.3 -17.7 36 

Financial & Professional Services 16.2 157.5 30.6 24.1 44 

Retail 13.0 129.4 14.8 12.9 37 

Healthcare 4.1 119.1 11.6 10.8 35 

Education 2.1 104.3 10.2 10.8 39 

Construction 9.4 67.4 -2.0 -2.9 39 

Tourism 7.6 71.3 12.0 20.3 34 

Public Sector 1.0 55.8 2.6 4.9 34 

Logistics 2.6 44.7 4.0 9.7 46 

Creative Industries 5.1 42.6 4.3 11.3 43 

ICT/Digital 4.7 35.9 10.3 40.1 43 

Food & Drink 0.4 26.3 1.2 4.7 45 

Textiles 0.9 18.5 -11.3 -37.8 47 

Aviation 0.4 13.7 3.2 30.9 74 

Sport 0.9 10.6 2.2 26.0 30 

Energy

priority sector by Manchester Enterprises and other key actors in the City-Region. Other 

sectors that have seen impressive growth in recent years are ICT/digital, tourism, 

aviation, sport and the creative industries (Table 4.1). 

4.7 The move towards a ‘knowledge economy’ is seen as a major priority for the City- 

Region. Knowledge-intensive sectors include creative industries, ICT/digital, financial 

and professional services, health, sport, environmental technologies, biotechnology and 

education. According to Manchester Enterprises, nearly 700,000 people are employed in 

“knowledge based priority sectors, with particularly strong concentration in Manchester 

and Bury” 54. To highlight one sector in particular, creative industries employ more than 

40,000 people, making it one of the main creative centres outside London, with the 

presence of Granada TV and the BBC, and a strong music and wider cultural scene of 

major importance. Also underpinning its aspiration to be the ‘Knowledge Capital of the 

North of England’, Manchester can claim a significant international higher education 

complex, with four universities in Greater Manchester and a student population (largely 

concentrated in Manchester itself) of over 60,000, as well as substantial public sector 

research in the health sector and research and design activities within major companies. 

4.8 In order to explore the economic rationale of the City-Region concept, information 

would be needed on the supply-chain linkages of businesses and on their markets for 

outputs. Rather surprisingly, no such information appears to be available. There has 

been no research study of business links comparable to the UWE research in Avon 

(Chapter 3 above). In the absence of such information, reports such as that of the 

Manchester City-Region Development Programme have to rely on anecdotal and 

informal knowledge. 

4.9 The discussion below therefore draws on the results of interviews with some key 

business leaders and representative organisations. We look at three selected sectors – 

financial and professional services (including the recent decision of the Bank of New 

York to locate in Manchester), creative industries, and the role of Manchester Airport. 

Financial and professional services 


4.10 As noted above, the financial and professional services sector has assumed increasing 

importance in the economy of the City-Region, and demonstrates the strength of a City- 

Region approach to thinking about a sub-regional geography. In particular, the sector is 

heavily concentrated in the core of the Manchester conurbation, while its impact in 

terms of employment spans the conurbation. Importantly, opportunities and barriers to 

its further growth need to be considered in the context of the City-Region. 

4.11 The sector comprises financial intermediation, insurance and pension funding, real 

estate, business activities, and related activities. Manchester boasts a strong financial 

sector, ranking third in GVA behind London and the South East. Greater Manchester has 

half of the financial services business of the North West. There is a strong perception 

amongst interviewees consulted for this project that the sector in Manchester has grown 

steadily to outrank Leeds. Its reputation and international profile have increased over 

recent years. For example, it was noted by one interviewee that key venture capital 

firms have moved from Leeds to Manchester, subtly boosting the image of the city. 

Legal firms that merged Manchester and Leeds businesses have grown faster in 

Manchester. 

54 Ibid, p 16. 

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78 

4.12 There is significant variation in the representation of the sector across Greater 

Manchester, with employment rates of 25% in Manchester and Trafford, dropping to 

10% in Bury and Tameside. Manchester, Trafford and Stockport are the areas with the 

highest concentrations of business units and employee numbers 55, while the most highprofile 

and ‘professional’ businesses are highly clustered in city-centre locations. This 

clustering is indicated in Figure 4.3, which maps the location quotient, or degree of 

employment specialization, of each district in the financial and professional services 

sector. 56 

4.13 A critical dichotomy within the sector is that between, on one hand, standard product 

services such as insurance and banking and, on the other, professional advisory 

business. The former is associated with strong competition on price, and it demands 

relatively routine skills. Much is largely back-office work. Increasingly it is vulnerable to 

outsourcing and to e-retailing which can enable a wide spread of locations of services. 

In contrast, the advisory element of the sector depends on high-level skills and face-toface 

contact. This reinforces the advantages of location in core-city sites to achieve a 

critical mass of informal contacts and to maximise access to other related (and often 

competing) business contacts. Social capital is consequently a critical determinant of 

competitiveness in the high-skill advisory activities within the financial and professional 

service sector. Often both the product and advisory functions are carried out within the 

same company, but as the Business Skills Northwest report notes, while the sector is 

projected to grow as a whole, “Banking and Finance and Insurance is expected to see 

shrinkage in employment in the next 10-12 years, with growth coming from the 

Professional and Business Services sector.” 57 This will have important implications for 

the strategic development of the sector in the context of the City-Region. 

55 Manchester Enterprises (2004) Business Skills Northwest, Financial and Professional Services Sector Profile. 

56 Location quotients measure the degree of over- or under-representation of employment in different areas. 

Values above 1.0 show places that are over-represented. 

57 Manchester Enterprises (2004) Business Skills Northwest, Financial and Professional Services Sector Profile, p 5.

Figure 4.3: Financial and professional services – employment location quotient by district, 2002 

Greater Manchester Districts 

LQ by Financial & Professional Service 

0.64. to 1 (6) 

1. to 1.2 (2) 

1.2. to 1.48 (1) 

1.48 to 1.75 (1) 

Indicates Growth 


Source: Greater Manchester Economic Assessment Executive Report 2004, Manchester Enterprises. 

4.14 The most important locational issue for the financial and professional sector is the 

availability of key employee skills in the City-Region. Manchester has a big advantage 

with its concentration of large universities in the North West region, including those in 

Liverpool and Lancaster. This will be illustrated in the discussion of the investment by 

the Bank of New York, below. Recent academic research found that graduates were 

strongly attracted to working in Manchester, confirming both the strength of the sector 

and the attractiveness of the City-Region as a place to live 58. The study found that 

young professionals making their career in the sector tended to chose to live in the 

rural and small towns in the hinterland of the conurbation, attracted by the high quality 

of life 59. The growth of city-centre apartments has also had a marked impact on the 

availability of skilled professionals for local businesses. Pro Manchester, the organisation 

which represents the professional services sector in Manchester, has confirmed that the 

growth of opportunities for ‘city living’ in the core of Manchester has made the 

attraction of skilled workers easier, while traditional high-quality suburbs such as 

Wilmslow remain important. Ongoing regeneration in the conurbation’s inner 

neighbourhoods also contributes to the provision of improved housing and 

neighbourhoods which is helping to spread the range of potential locations for 

professional households. 

58 Devine, F. et. al. (2003) Mobility and the middle classes: a case study of Manchester and the North West, 

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27, 3. 

59 Data on student first-job destinations is explored later in this Chapter. 

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80 

4.15 Inward investment within the sector in Manchester is reinforced by the existing critical 

mass of activity in the sector. The presence of other related companies clustered in the 

city centre facilitates networking and innovation, although this is clearly hard to 

quantify. Nevertheless, all of our interviewees stressed the key role played by informal 

contacts and networking. 

4.16 Related to this is the attraction for companies of locations with the right image and 

reputation. Companies search for the ideal ‘total location’ and this encompasses location 

within the city centre and an appropriate building. The provision of the right sort of 

property is a key issue for the City-Region: companies are increasingly looking for 

buildings of the right size and with provision of high quality technology facilities, but 

also for developments with ‘green’ or sustainable credentials. 

The Bank of New York 

4.17 Over the last year The Bank of New York decided to open a new business centre in 

Manchester which will create some 350 new jobs in the city by 2006. The Bank of New 

York, a global player in securities servicing, employs 23,000 worldwide providing 

multiple services such as custody and safekeeping. 

4.18 The Bank already employs 3,000 staff in the UK and currently has offices in London, 

Swindon, Liverpool and Edinburgh. Key to the Bank of New York’s decision was an 

assessment of the skills available in the City-Region. Tim Keaney, European Vice 

President and head of Europe, Bank of New York, argued: “We chose Manchester 

because it has an excellent transport and business infrastructure, a wide and deep pool 

of talent, and it aligns with regulatory and customer expectations of diversifying our 

business locations.” 

4.19 Indeed, the determining factor in the Bank’s decision was considered to be accessibility 

to a skilled and highly motivated workforce together with the strong transport 

infrastructure reflected in good heavy-rail and air links. The large number of non-stop 

flights to the US, and easy access to London and the southeast also played an important 

role. 

4.20 Manchester has an established reputation for excellence within the financial services 

sector with a large number of finance and insurance companies based in the city and a 

range of support networks in place. Pro-Manchester, the leading support agency for the 

sector and with over 200 members, provides support services for businesses to help 

them grow. There are a variety of other networks and associations present such as the 

Securities Institute and the Merchant Bankers’ Association. The insurance sector in 

Manchester also has a range of local networks and support organisations such as the 

Insurance Institute of Manchester and the Manchester Insurance Forum. 

4.21 These and other local agencies in Manchester worked in concert in discussions with the 

Bank over its locational and infrastructure needs. For example, the Bank worked closely 

with the Manchester Investment and Development Agency Service (MIDAS), the 

Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and property developers to identify 

the best location for its offices. Emphasizing the importance of available skills in its 

decision, Pro Manchester argued that other agencies such as the Careers Service of the 

University of Manchester were instrumental in convincing Bank of New York to locate 

in Manchester, by demonstrating the strength of graduate retention at the University.

Creative industries 

4.22 Greater Manchester is a major centre for the creative industries which have been 

identified as a priority sector in the NW Regional Strategy 1999 and as one of four 

economic sectors in the NW Cultural Strategy 2000. According to Business Skills 

Northwest, employment in the creative industries across Greater Manchester was 53,432 

in 2002. This represents 4.6 per cent of total employment in the sub-region. The subregion 

is also home to 7,300 creative businesses or 8.6% of the total business 

population. In terms of output, the creative industries sector in GM is by far the largest 

concentration in the NW with turnover estimated at £627m (35% of regional sector 

output) 60. 

4.23 Manchester is therefore considered to have the most significant creative industries 

cluster nationally, outside of London. Table 4.2 illustrates the striking concentration of 

cultural industries in Manchester itself (and to a lesser extent in Salford). The sector 

may soon be strengthened by the relocation of several departments of the BBC to 

Manchester from London. 

Table 4.2: Distribution of creative companies in Greater Manchester 

Local Authority Number of institutions 

Bury 47 

Manchester 1,214 

Oldham 22 

Rochdale 25 

Salford 226 

Stockport 20 

Tameside 93 

Trafford 57 

Wigan 27 

Note: the totals represent the number of clients served by CIDS. 

Source: CIDS. 

4.24 The sector is defined as follows: 


“The creative industries is a diverse sector comprising of many activities, productive 

and service based, which harness the artistic and creative skills of those working in 

the industry. The official definition of the creative industries is provided by the DCMS 

[Department of Culture, Media and Sport] as ‘those activities which have their origin 

in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have the opportunity for wealth 

and job creation through the generation of intellectual property.’” 61 

4.25 It includes individual sectors such as architecture, advertising, design, fashion, crafts, 

music, publishing, TV and radio production, amongst others. Clearly the sector benefits 

from the unique environment created within the city by the very presence of other 

creative businesses. The sector is very distinctive and complex. Interviewees consulted 

for this project argued that informal connections play a critically important role and that, 

since to be successful businesses and individuals need to raise their profile within the 

60 Manchester Entreprises (2004) Business Skills Northwest, Creative Industries Sector Profile. 

61 Manchester Entreprises (2004) Business Skills Northwest, Creative Industries Sector Profile, p 5. 

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82 

sector, the dense informal networks associated with the critical mass of businesses is 

critical to this. There are also strong spin-offs to other related sectors of the economy. 

For example it is argued that the presence of creative industries impacts on and strongly 

benefits sectors such as tourism, museums, and textiles, feeding through into benefits to 

more commercially-driven sectors such as ICT and finance. Another important 

consideration is that the sector is dominated by small or micro-businesses. Indeed, half 

of the North West region’s creative businesses employ fewer than five people 62. There 

are also strong links with the conurbation’s universities, for example the University of 

Salford provides MA programmes and has developed partnerships with TV and 

production companies. 

4.26 The Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS) was established to provide support 

to the sector within the three City Pride districts of Manchester, Salford and Trafford, 

and is currently funded by ERDF, NWDA, and Manchester City Council. CIDS offers 

information for creative business to improve the support available to them, which can 

be accessed either through their website, factsheets, phone, or by e-mail. CIDS also has 

a strategic role, for example in developing new projects in response to industry needs. 

It also supports creative networks (for example in computer games, or fashion design) 

by developing trade opportunities (Transatlantic Express) and providing networking 

events (for example The Loop). Finally, it works with other networks and initiatives in 

the rest of the City-Region. 

Manchester Airport 

4.27 The Manchester City-Region derives enormous benefit from having one of the largest 

airports in the country, handling around 20 million passengers a year. The airport 

connects the North of England with the rest of the country and the rest of the world 

and has 90 airlines flying to over 180 destinations. 

4.28 Table 4.3 shows the airport’s extensive reach in terms of leisure-related air trips. While 

passengers from Greater Manchester comprise by far the largest proportion, the 

Airport’s catchment draws strongly from Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside, and South 

and West Yorkshire. Indeed, on a per capita basis, trips from Cheshire are almost as 

large as those from Greater Manchester, again emphasising the strong links between 

Greater Manchester and north Cheshire. 

62 Manchester Entreprises (2004) Business Skills Northwest, Creative Industries Sector Profile.

Table 4.3: Passenger trips (leisure) from Manchester Airport, in 2004 

County Passenger Percentage of Trips per 

trips all trips 100 population 

Greater Manchester 4,583,013 27.41 184.62 

Lancashire 1,949,223 11.66 137.78 

West Yorkshire 1,550,804 9.27 74.59 

Merseyside 1,505,713 9.00 110.55 

Cheshire 1,407,823 8.42 143.21 

South Yorkshire 922,529 5.52 72.85 

Staffordshire 594,814 3.56 56.79 

North Yorkshire 560,047 3.35 74.59 

Humberside 451,082 2.70 51.94 

Cumbria 360,472 2.16 73.93 

Derbyshire 340,617 2.04 35.62 

West Midlands 311,186 1.86 12.18 

Shropshire 224,997 1.35 50.96 

Nottinghamshire 221,315 1.32 21.79 

Cleveland 123,516 0.74 22.83 

Tyne and Wear 109,064 0.65 10.14 

Lincolnshire 92,696 0.55 14.33 

Hereford & Worcs 86,205 0.52 12.02 

Durham 64,305 0.38 10.88 

Leicestershire 47,259 0.28 5.31 

Warwickshire 31,586 0.19 6.24 

Devon 27,861 0.17 2.59 

Buckinghamshire 26,722 0.16 3.89 

Greater London 23,290 0.14 0.32 

Gloucestershire 

Source: Manchester Airport (CAA) 

18,511 0.11 3.28 

4.29 A large number of passengers travelling from Manchester airport transfer at one of the 

major European airports to reach their destination. As shown in Table 4.4, around half 

of the one-and-a-half million passengers travelling to London Heathrow and over half of 

the half-a-million passengers travelling to Amsterdam use these airports as hubs for 

onward journeys. 

Table 4.4: Passengers transferring at a hub 


Destination Total Passengers Proportion of Passengers Transferring 

Amsterdam 510,380 56% 

Brussels 190,075 7% 

Paris 525,495 40% 

Frankfurt 347,887 51% 

London Gatwick 429,340 38% 

London Heathrow 1,402,092 52% 

Zurich 102,128 20% 

Total 3,507,397 

Source: CAA Origin-Destination Survey 2004; Manchester Airport 

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84 

4.30 In terms of recruitment, labour is drawn from an area close to the airport itself and 

from within the City-Region area. The largest proportion of employees is employed by 

autonomous companies rather than the airport itself (Table 4.5). 

Table 4.5: Top 10 airport employers 

Company Name Employees 

1. MA MAAS 1,113 

2. Alpha Flight Services 1,050 

3. First Choice 970 

4. Servisair Globeground 954 

5. Thomas Cook Airlines 831 

6. MyTravel 801 

7. British Airways CitiExpress 756 

8. British Airways 732 

9. MA RHSL 700 

10. Britannia Airways 

Source: Manchester Airport 

663 

4.31 Overall, the airport generates around 90,000 jobs, of which 30,000 are in the NW 

region, 18,000 on site and around 3,000 employed by the airport 63. Over half of on-site 

jobs are baggage handling, security, retail and catering jobs. For such lower-paid, lowerskilled 

jobs, the airport draws its employees from the immediate surrounding areas such 

as Wythenshawe and Stockport. In terms of procurement, airline operations and staff 

need to be located on the airport site. Flight catering, cargo, maintenance activities, car 

parking, hotel and conferencing services call for a location that is in or nearby the 

airport. 

4.32 The airport is part of the Manchester Airports Group Plc (MAG) which also manages 

two other regional airports – Nottingham East Midlands and Bournemouth and 

Humberside. The stakeholders of the airport are the 10 authorities of Greater 

Manchester, with Manchester City Council, the largest stakeholder, owning 55% of the 

airport. The state of ownership constitutes a “…mutual opportunity to work in 

partnership” and allows Manchester City Council to work closely with the other 

authorities on the development of the airport. 

4.33 The growth of the airport can be partly attributed to joint working between Manchester 

and the other authorities in the sub-region and the support of agencies that draw on 

partnerships. In many instances, long-haul routes have been the result of partnership 

working at a sub-regional level. For example, the networks developed with the Chinese 

and Mandarin business communities allowed for a number of large companies to base 

their headquarters in the region. 

4.34 It is the presence of large multinationals such as Siemens and Astra Zeneca that enables 

the continued growth and success of long-haul flights. Such companies require global 

connectivity and the presence of a large airport is a determining factor in their decision 

to locate in the region. Agencies like MIDAS draw on this strength to attract new 

63 Centre for Urban Policy Studies (2004) South Manchester Baseline Study, The University of Manchester.

investment to the City-Region. Some relationships exist with other areas such as 

Cheshire, but these focus largely on environmental rather than economic development 

issues. 

4.35 According to representatives from the airport, other factors that affect the location 

decision for these companies are the city’s strong identity and the knowledge base on 

offer. So in a sense, “the City-Region is made up of the airport, the universities, the City 

of Manchester…and its boundaries can stretch to include other regional conurbations 

such as Liverpool”. 

4.36 The role of the airport in terms of connectivity and infrastructure has been 

acknowledged for some time and is reflected in strategies at a regional and sub-regional 

level. However, its role in the local and regional economy and its significance “other 

than for transport” is thought to be insufficiently recognised. In addition to the 

employment impact, the airport generates income and tax revenues estimated to grow 

to £3.8 billion nationally and £1.5 billion for the NW by 2015. However, currently less 

than half of the income generated through the wealth-creation effects of the airport is 

thought to stay within the region. 

The housing market 


4.37 Manchester’s City-Region has a highly varied and fragmented housing market, showing 

marked segregation in price and quality in the owner-occupied market and along 

tenure lines. Indeed, it is difficult to talk of even a conurbation-wide ‘housing market’. 

In recent years serious problems of low demand for (predominantly) pre-1919 terraced 

stock, a legacy of the area’s industrial past, have emerged in the inner ring of 

Manchester and Salford. Low demand for housing in some neighbourhoods has also 

been shaped by long-run trends of decentralisation of population and employment – for 

example to new towns such as Warrington and to north Cheshire and the Peak District 

– economic restructuring; and changing aspirations towards housing. The low-demand 

problem led to the designation of Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders for Manchester- 

Salford and Oldham-Rochdale. Importantly, the pathfinder initiative has recognised the 

need for sub-regional strategies to intervene in the housing market in order to rebalance 

the available stock and implement holistic regeneration programmes. 

4.38 Contrasting with this picture of weak and deprived neighbourhoods, is the remarkable 

resurgence of residential growth in the city centre of Manchester over the past decade, 

led initially by the conversion into apartments of former industrial and commercial 

buildings, and more latterly by large purpose-built apartment developments. Traditional 

middle-class suburbs such as Chorlton and Didsbury in South Manchester have 

remained desirable and have seen strong house price increases in the same period; 

while numerous outer suburban areas, particularly to the south of Manchester and 

extending well into Cheshire, are closely connected to Manchester and bound by its 

functional reach. These suburbs, villages and towns include Wilmslow, Sale, Altrincham, 

and Macclesfield to the south; Glossop and outer Stockport villages towards the Peak 

District; and Worsley and Lymm to the west of Salford. Indeed, the new-build private 

sector throughout the North West remained buoyant from the early to late 1990s 64. 

64 Nevin et al (2001) Changing housing markets and urban regeneration in the M62 Corridor, CURS, University of 

Birmingham. 

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86 

4.39 The picture of a highly differentiated polycentric housing market is reinforced by the 

map of house prices produced by the Centre for Urban and Regional Research 65. As 

Figure 4.4 indicates, the general picture is of a very weak housing market throughout 

the inner core (excluding the apartment market in the city centre), ‘warm’ areas ringing 

much of the edge of the conurbation, particularly in Trafford and Stockport, and 

occasional ‘hot spots’ in places such as South Manchester and close to the centre of 

Oldham. A recent report 66 confirms the ongoing strength of the market in central 

Manchester as well as the uniformity of a zone of very low prices in East and North 

Manchester and Central Salford. As Figure 4.5 indicates, further from the core, the 

weakness of Oldham’s market is clear, while the picture in Rochdale and Bolton is 

more mixed; and the large swathe of more prosperous suburbs towards Cheshire is 

shown very clearly. The major spatial divisions in the City-Region appear to be between 

markets dominated by older industrial housing or (peripheral) council estates and their 

associated socio-economic difficulties, and those of mainly suburban, affluent character 

exhibiting high house prices and hence affordability problems. Addressing housing 

market issues therefore clearly requires a city regional approach. 

Figure 4.4: Greater Manchester, average house prices 1995-1999 

Average prices 

1995 to 1999 

253,000 

93,000 

76,000 

63,000 

15,000 

Source: Nevin et al, Changing housing markets and urban regeneration in the M62 Corridor, 2001 

65 ibid. 

66 Leather, P. and Roberts, J. (2004) Housing market trends in the North West of England, CURS, University of Birmingham.

Figure 4.5: House prices, 2004 

District boundary 

Pathfinder boundary 

% new build 

78 

39 

Median price 2003 

141,000 to 498,000 

102,000 to 141,000 

78,000 to 102,000 

53,000 to 78,000 

15,000 to 53,000 


Source: Leather and Roberts, Housing market trends in the North West of England, 2004 

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88 

4.40 Despite the heterogeneity of the City-Region’s housing market, the overall pattern of 

churn in the housing market of Greater Manchester and some of its constituent districts 

(see above, Chapter 2) suggests that the aggregate housing-related City-Region covers 

not only the ten districts of the conurbation, but also Macclesfield to the south, High 

Peak to the east, Rossendale to the north and possibly Warrington and Chorley. 

Service patterns 

4.41 As in the Bristol case study, a variety of types of services are explored below: retail, 

culture and entertainment including football, health and higher education. 

Retail services 

4.42 Manchester’s urban ‘renaissance’ has been closely associated for many residents and 

visitors with the vast improvements in city-centre shopping and the growing diversity in 

its shops and associated leisure developments in recent years. Manchester city centre, 

and other key shopping centres within the conurbation – particularly the Trafford 

Centre – serve a very wide catchment which represents a strong expression of the City- 

Region. Again this retail offer contributes to the long-term attractiveness of the City- 

Region to residents and hence its sustainability. 

4.43 The only data on which one can draw to estimate Greater Manchester’s shopping 

catchment come from a GMC survey of visitors to the ten districts of the conurbation. 

Samples were taken from locations in each of the districts, although the great majority 

of respondents inevitably relate to destinations in Manchester itself. The closest 

approximation to the retail catchment is provided by selecting only those who were day 

visitors to Manchester or whose visits to Manchester or Trafford were either for 

shopping or entertainment purposes provides. This is shown in Figures 4.6 and 4.7 as 

visitors per 10,000 population of the origin district. There is a wide spread of origins 

across the whole of the NW (especially into north Cheshire) and into north-east Wales 

and Lancashire. The boundary is quite sharply drawn to the east (probably reflecting 

the competing pull of shopping in Leeds and the Meadowhall Centre in Sheffield), 

although there is a scattering of visitors drawn from across the Pennines.


Figure 4.6: Day visitors to Manchester (shown per 10,000 population of origin district – 

total number 1767) 

Day Visitors 

Manchester 

2. to 8. 

1. to 2. 

0.5 to 1. 

0.25 to 0.5 

0.01 to 0.25 

89


90 

Figure 4.7: Shopping and leisure trips to Manchester and Trafford (shown per 10,000 

population of origin district – total number 1022) 

Source: GMC Visitor Spending Survey, 2005 

Culture and entertainment 

Day Visitors 

Manchester 

2. to 8. 

1. to 2. 

0.5 to 1. 

0.25 to 0.5 

0.01 to 0.25 

4.44 The cultural offer of Manchester is critical to its ongoing ‘health’ and vitality, and its 

attractiveness to potential residents. Manchester’s city centre is the focus of cultural life 

in the City-Region, with important venues such as the Bridgewater Hall (home to the 

Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestras) and the MEN Arena; theatres such as Royal 

Exchange and Contact; art galleries such as the recently refurbished City Gallery and 

Whitworth; and a myriad of popular music venues such as the Manchester Apollo and 

Sankey’s Soap. In addition, the city’s distinctive ‘bar culture’ and nightlife combine to


create a magnetic draw on students and young people. The contribution of the city’s 

heritage of innovative musical culture – and associated creative industries – to the 

international reputation of the City-Region cannot be understated. 

4.45 Manchester has a distinctive edge in its cultural offer. Key individuals interviewed for 

this project argued that the cultural sector is more creative and commercially minded 

because many of the cultural establishments are not state funded and not in receipt of 

public funding their success depends on their innovativeness and creativity. The pattern 

of marketing differs from that of most London venues where theatre and music 

performances are marketed on a much wider scale, for example on the Underground 

network and internationally. In contrast, most of Manchester’s marketing is essentially 

targeted at local populations. 

4.46 More recently the NWDA has injected some funding into the creative industries sector 

to enhance the marketing of the cultural image of Manchester. New events will be 

staged and the marketing strategy will include street campaigns and banners advertising 

in international airports. Manchester City Council’s cultural strategy centres on attracting 

major events and developing major cultural establishments such as URBIS. A 

programme of festivals is scheduled, for example Manchester will make a £5 million 

investment in a biannual festival programme that will start in 2007. It has also 

supported Liverpool Capital of Culture and will be incorporating its impact into the 

evaluation of the festivals. 

4.47 Two specific elements of the cultural ‘offer’ can be explored in greater detail: concerts 

staged at The Bridgewater Hall; and theatrical performances in all Greater Manchester 

theatres. 

4.48 The Bridgewater Hall is a major venue for the performing arts in Manchester. The 

Hall relies largely on “selling tickets to existing customers”. The venue has 30,000 email 

addresses on its database and sends out newsletters to a further 8,000 people. 

Marketing is strongly reliant on selling season tickets to regular customers and achieving 

audiences with a strong base of customers who book for an entire season. This 

approach however is less effective in capturing “butterfly audiences”, the younger more 

selective audiences who are less likely to attend through subscription. The Hallé 

Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic fund their own marketing although sales are also 

handled through the Bridgewater. All three institutions have links with the creative 

industries sector and the Bridgewater has also links with other large national venues. 

There are some linkages with local schools as part of the Step Up project which aims 

to raise awareness about the industry and encourage more people to become involved. 

4.49 The catchment area of performances at the Bridgewater Hall varies significantly 

depending on the orchestra and by type of performance. International artists will draw 

from a much wider geographical area including well outside the region – most within a 

two-hour drive from Manchester. Most concerts however, draw audiences from less than 

an hour’s drive time, and the exact geography of catchments strongly reflects road 

networks. It is also worth noting that different performances have a different 

demographic reach (particularly in age) and again this is reflected in the geographical 

configuration of the catchments. 

4.50 Maps 4.8 and 4.9 illustrate this for two specific concerts – a performance by the 

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and an organ recital. The visit of the Chicago reflects the 

Bridgewater’s attempt to widen the catchment of audiences and to project a genuinely 

91


92 

international image on Manchester’s cultural offer. Both maps illustrate the very 

extensive catchment of a major venue such as the Bridgewater. While audiences come 

predominantly from the North West, there are significant numbers from north Wales, 

Yorkshire and further parts of the country. 

Figure 4.8: The Bridgewater Hall – ticket sales per 10,000 population for The Chicago 

Symphony Orchestra, 2005 (total number 844) 

Source: The Bridgewater Hall 

Bridgewater Hall 

Chicago Symphony 

2. to 8. 

1. to 2. 

0.5 to 1. 

0.25 to 0.5 

0.01 to 0.25

Figure 4.9: The Bridgewater Hall – ticket sales per 10,000 population for an organ recital, 

2005 (total number 604) 

Source: The Bridgewater Hall 


Bridgewater Hall 

Organ Recital 

2. to 8. 

1. to 2. 

0.5 to 1. 

0.25 to 0.5 

0.01 to 0.25 

4.51 The second example is the catchment area of theatres within Greater Manchester 67. 

These show a similar wide extent with a marked sub-regional pattern of ticket sales, in 

which the catchment area extends well into surrounding Lancashire and Cheshire and 

across the Pennines into Yorkshire. Figures 4.10 and 4.11 show the breakdown of 

67 The theatres included are: Library Theatre Company, Contact Theatre, Palace Theatre, The Royal Exchange 

Theatre, Opera House, Bury Met, Tameside Hippodrome, The Lowry, Bolton Octagon and Oldham Coliseum. 

Data cover the years 1998-2003. 

93


94 

customers attending any of the eight theatres in Greater Manchester over the period 

1998-2003. Of particular note are the relatively high proportion of customers from the 

more affluent residential areas of Stockport and Trafford and the adjoining areas of 

north Cheshire Figure 4.12). The spread of patronage is extremely wide and provides 

some indication of the cultural draw of major venues in Manchester. While the majority 

of customers is drawn from a North West catchment, there is hardly a single local 

authority in England & Wales which does not have at least one person attending a 

performance at one of the theatres. 

Figure 4.10: Percentage of total ticket bookings for Manchester theatres, 1998-2003 

Source: Arts about Manchester 

Ticket sales 

5. to 15. 

1. to 5. 

0.5 to 1. 

0.1 to 0.5 

>.0 to 0.1

Figure 4.11: Theatre ticket bookings per 1000 population 



Theatre bookings 

by population 

15. to 50. 

2.5. to 15. 

0.5 to 2.5 

0.1 to 0.5 

>.0 to 0.1 

95


96 

Figure 4.12: Number of ticket bookers as a percentage of total district population in 

Greater Manchester districts 

Bolton 7% 

Stockport 15% 


Manchester 13% 

Wigan 4% 

Football supporters 

Salford 9% 

Oldham 7% 

Bury 12% 

Rochdale 7% 

Tameside 10% 

Trafford 16% 

4.52 Manchester is renowned for its footballing past and present, closely tied with its two 

principal teams: Manchester United and Manchester City. Other League teams of note in 

the City-Region are Bolton Wanderers, Wigan Athletic, Oldham Athletic and Stockport 

County. Football is both a deeply-rooted cultural institution within the conurbation, a 

great boost to its international reputation and image, and economically quite significant. 

4.53 Recent research by the Manchester Institute for Popular Culture 68 (MIPC) has confirmed 

that the two major clubs remain embedded in their host areas – locally and regionally – 

and crucially they have retained their association with the ‘place’ of Manchester despite 

the major changes that football has undergone in recent years, including the 

globalisation of the game. MIPC analysed the location of Manchester United and City 

season ticket holders across the conurbation and region in 2001. In all, Manchester City 

had 16,481 season ticket holder and Manchester United 27,667. The ticket holders living 

in a Manchester location were taken to be those living within the ‘M’ postcode area 

(which approximates to the southern part of the conurbation – Manchester, Salford and 

Trafford). The figures for this analysis are shown in Table 4.6. 

68 Brown, A. (2001) ‘Do you come from Manchester?’ A postcode analysis of the location of Manchester United 

and Manchester City season ticket holders, MIPC, Manchester Metropolitan University.


Table 4.6: Distribution of season ticket holder in ‘Manchester’ – M postcode area; and the region 

Club Number of Percentage Number of Percentage of 

season ticket season ticket ticket holders ticket holders 

holders in ‘M’ holders in ‘M’ in North West in North West 

postal area postal area 

Manchester City 6,678 40 12, 864 78 

Manchester United 7,808 29 19,788 72 

Source: Brown, ‘Do you come from Manchester?’ 

4.54 Relatively high proportions of ticket holders live within the conurbation, particularly in 

the case of Manchester City FC. There are also high concentrations in some of the 

peripheral suburban areas such as Stockport, Oldham, Bolton and Warrington. In 

addition very high proportions of season ticket holders live elsewhere in the NW, 

indicating the importance of the City-Region as a crucible of support for the two teams. 

Indeed, “for both clubs, there remains very strong support in the hinterlands of 

Manchester and across the North West, with the heaviest concentrations in Lancashire 

and Cheshire.” 69 

4.55 Despite this strong local base, there are relatively high proportions of supporters 

outside the NW – over one-quarter in the case of Manchester United. Significantly, this 

wider support adds to the social capital of the area by providing opportunities for 

informal contact between some of the ‘movers and shakers’ in Manchester and senior 

figures in national politics and high-profile businesses. Executive suites at football 

games can be an important venue for the informal conduct of business and for 

establishing social networks. 

4.56 The current data on the membership of Manchester City Football Club (MCFC) further 

confirms the wide catchment area of major football teams. Figure 4.13 shows the 

distribution of season ticket holders of MCFC for the 2004-5 season. The pattern is again 

a striking one with supporters showing a strong concentration in the NW and into north 

Cheshire and northern parts of Lancashire, but with some supporters drawn from 

widely-spread parts of the country. As suggested above, the pattern of support for 

Manchester United FC is likely to be even more widespread than for MCFC. 

69 Ibid, p 16. 

97


98 

Figure 4.13: Manchester City FC – season ticket holders 2004-5 per 10,000 population 

(total number 33,719) 

Source: MCFC 

Hospital services 

Manchester City 

Season Ticket Holders 

51 to 600 

26 to 50 

6to 25 

2to 5 

1 

4.57 The pattern of patients in Manchester hospitals (Table 4.7) shows an essentially national 

catchment. While the highest percentage comes from the North West, the per capita 

figures in the final column of the table show that, on a pro rata basis, patients are 

almost as likely to come from Merseyside as from Greater Manchester and more likely 

to come from the West Midlands. This reflects the specialised nature of much of the 

hospital provision.


Table 4.7: Patients in Manchester, Salford and Trafford hospitals, 2000-4 

% of total patients Patients per million population 

Conurbations 

Gr.Manchester 6.8 80.2 

Merseyside 2.9 61.7 

S.Yorks 1.8 41.1 

Tyne & Wear 1.1 28.8 

W.Midlands 2.4 27.8 

W.Yorks 

Regions excluding above mets 

2.6 36.1 

North East 3.0 60.4 

North West 15.6 158.4 

Yorks/Humber 4.3 77.8 

W.Midlands 8.9 95.9 

East 5.8 31.4 

East Midlands 9.9 69.5 

London 6.8 27.9 

South East 8.8 32.3 

South West 6.0 35.7 

Wales 6.5 65.1 

Scotland 5.2 30.2 

N.Ireland 

Source: NW Public Health Observatory 

1.5 26.7 

4.58 The principal City-Region role played by hospital provision is essentially in terms of the 

catchment of its work force. Table 4.8 and Figures 4.14 and 4.15 show the distribution 

of Central Manchester hospital employees broken down by broad occupation. As 

expected, the majority of employees reside within the Manchester boundaries, with the 

remainder largely found in the Stockport and Warrington areas. 

4.59 As with the Bristol hospital employees, there is a distinction between the places of 

residence of different occupational groupings. Even though the groupings shown here 

are not the same as for the Bristol hospitals, the differences in the distribution of the 

higher- and lower-skilled workers are equally clear. Larger concentrations of the higherskilled 

employees are found in the southern suburbs and outside Manchester while the 

lower-skilled employees are drawn from postcodes closer to the hospital itself. The 

figures also re-enforce this in terms of differential salary levels. There are much larger 

numbers of nursing rather than medical staff living in the area adjacent to the hospital. 

99


100 

Table 4.8: Central Manchester Hospital employee distribution 

Figure 4.14: Central Manchester Hospital staff addresses, nursing staff 

Source: South Manchester Baseline Study, CUPS, 2004. 

Main postcodes % 

M SK WA Other 

Total staff (Manchester) (Stockport) (Warrington) postcodes 

Administrative 1,574 62.3 19.3 6.5 3.3 

Medical 658 47.3 21.3 2.4 9.1 

Nursing 2,276 57.3 24.7 1.6 4.7 

Professional 734 57.1 8.3 7.6 5.5 

Others 1,017 88.6 5.3 2.9 0.5 


MRI Hospital 

Motorway 

Greater Manchester 


Postcode Sectors 

Study Area Wards 

South Manchester 

Study Area 

Employee base - Nursing Staff 

Manchester Royal Infirmary 

170 

85 

17

Figure 4.15: Central Manchester Hospital staff addresses, medical staff 

MRI Hospital 

Motorway 

Greater Manchester 


Postcode Sectors 

Study Area Wards 

South Manchester 

Study Area 

Employee base - Medical Staff 

Manchester Royal Infirmary 

33 

16.5 

3.3 


Higher education 


4.60 The concentration of universities is a key element in attracting high-level investment 

into Greater Manchester. As is evident from the example of the Bank of New York and 

the views of interviewees from Manchester Enterprises and other representative 

organisations, businesses – and especially firms in professional services – see the quality 

of the potential labour force as a key determinant in arriving at locational decisions 

about investment. 

4.61 As in the case of Avon, the higher education institutions in Greater Manchester have a 

net import balance in terms of students at local universities. Table 4.9 shows the home 

origin and the destination of first job for students from all the Greater Manchester 

universities. While the vast majority of students come from within Greater Manchester 

or the remainder of the North West (53% and 12% respectively), the catchment is 

national, with 10% coming from London and the South East. These proportions differ as 

amongst the different universities, with Manchester University having a higher 

percentage of non-local students than, for example, Manchester Metropolitan University. 

Again, however, the most significant figure from the table is the comparison of the 

percentages for home origins and job destinations. Only Greater Manchester and (by 

only a relatively small margin) London have higher percentages as first-job destinations 

than as home origins. In other words, the local area retains a higher fraction of students 

to work in the area than come from the area. Interestingly, Greater Bristol has higher 

per capita figures working in and coming from Avon than has Greater Manchester 

coming from and working in Greater Manchester. This reflects the different social and 

employment composition of the two areas. 

101


102 

Table 4.9: Home origin and first job destination of Manchester students, 2001-2 

% Job % Home Job location Home origin 

location origin per 100,000 per 100,000 

population population 

Conurbations 

Tyneside 0.7 1.0 5.0 9.9 

Gr.Manchester 52.9 32.3 161.5 134.4 

Merseyside 2.9 3.7 15.9 27.8 

Avon 0.7 0.7 5.0 7.7 

W.Midlands 1.8 2.4 5.3 9.5 

SYorks 1.3 1.5 8.0 12.6 

WYorks 2.5 3.9 9.0 19.4 

Regions excluding conurbations 

North East 0.5 1.6 2.6 11.5 

North West 12.0 15.3 31.4 54.7 

South West 1.2 2.4 2.2 6.2 

West Midlands 3.4 5.0 9.5 19.2 

Yorks/Humber 1.0 2.3 4.9 14.5 

East Midlands 3.8 6.1 6.9 15.1 

East Midlands 2.3 3.9 3.2 7.5 

London 6.3 5.5 6.7 7.9 

South East 3.7 6.5 3.5 8.5 

N.Ireland 0.6 1.4 2.5 8.8 

Scotland 0.8 1.3 1.2 2.7 

Wales 

Source: HESA 

6.0 1.9 4.8 11.4 

4.62 Manchester University, one of the largest employers in Manchester, draws its labour 

force from a wide catchment area, as shown in Figures 4.16 and 4.17. As with hospital 

employees, there is a distinction between academic and non-academic support staff in 

that the latter are drawn more tightly from the immediate area of the University. 

Conversely, academic staff show larger concentrations in the areas of South Manchester, 

Stockport and North Cheshire.

Figure 4.16: Manchester University academic staff addresses 

Staff classification 

Academic 

Academic Related 

Clinical 

Research 

University Campus 


Figure 4.17: Manchester University technical staff addresses 

Staff classification 

Clinical 

Manual 

Technician 

University Campus 



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104 

Defining a service-based City-Region 

4.63 Drawing on some of the flows outlined above we can derive an indication of the 

definition of the Manchester City-Region based on leisure- and service-related functions. 

Table 4.10 uses three specific examples of flows attendance at a Bridgewater Hall 

concert; season ticket holders of Manchester City Football Club; and shoppers and 

visitors to Manchester. In each case the numbers of people involved from local 

authorities other than Manchester itself have been expressed as a ratio of the actual to 

expected flows (where the expected value is simply a direct function of the population 

size of the relevant origin district). High ratios therefore show places with a greaterthan-expected 

flow. In effect, what these ratios do is to partial out the size effect of 

origin districts and hence to emphasize the distance effect on the flows. 

Table 4.10: A service-related definition of the Manchester City-Region 

Bridgewater Manchester City FC Manchester shoppers 

concert season tickets & visitors 

patrons 

Trafford 32.0 22.4 12.9 

Stockport 20.7 27.2 16.4 

High Peak 23.8 19.4 16.4 

Bury 18.2 15.4 17.7 

Tameside 7.6 26.9 15.8 

Oldham 11.9 12.6 20.0 

Macclesfield 19.1 14.3 8.5 

Rochdale 10.4 13.5 11.3 

Salford 15.7 10.6 5.0 

Rossendale 11.8 2.4 14.7 

Congleton 11.7 4.7 7.1 

Bolton 9.8 3.4 10.2 

Chorley 5.4 2.4 7.3 

Wigan 6.4 2.8 5.4 

Warrington 5.5 4.2 3.7 

Vale Royal 4.1 5.6 3.7 

Fylde 2.5 5.1 4.7 

Crewe 3.4 2.3 3.0 

4.64 Table 4.10 shows those districts for which there is a ratio of 2.0 or greater for all three 

of the sets of flows. These are therefore the local authorities that have especially high 

links with Manchester as measured by patronage of the three selected types of activity. 

The districts are ranked in order of the average ratio across the three flows. 

4.65 Some of the rankings are interesting, if not surprising. For example, High Peak in 

Derbyshire and Macclesfield in Cheshire are very strongly linked to Manchester. So too 

is Rossendale in the north and, to a lesser extent, Fylde to the north west. While all 

nine of the other districts in Greater Manchester feature in the list, the two most closely 

linked are Trafford and Stockport 70. It is interesting – but no surprise – that the lowest 

in ranking are Bolton and Wigan, the first having long emphasised its distinctiveness from 

Manchester and the second being effectively split between Liverpool and Manchester. 

70 Salford’s ranking is probably artificially depressed by its low rank on shopping and visits to Manchester. This 

may reflect the fact that in the Visitor Survey people from Salford did not consider themselves as ‘visitors’.

4.66 Using actual; expected ratios of this kind may be a powerful way of defining the 

linkages between core districts and their tributary areas. 

The governance context 


4.67 There has been a variety of cross-authority partnerships within Greater Manchester over 

a long period. The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA), formed in 

1986 after the abolition of the Greater Manchester Council, is the most obvious example 

of collective work at a sub-regional level. The Greater Manchester strategy was 

developed in 1993 to promote the interests of the sub-region and work in conjunction 

with other city–regions. The strategy has eight objectives: to promote a dynamic 

economy; enhance the regional centre; promote culture sport and tourism; improve 

connectivity; raise levels of education and skills; create sustainable communities; reduce 

crime; and improve health and healthcare. A more recent partnership – The Greater 

Manchester Forum, which includes the ten Greater Manchester authorities – aims to 

build a world-class City-Region at the heart of a thriving NW through the integration of 

strategies at the sub-regional level. 

4.68 The City Pride initiative – responding to a Government programme that invited London, 

Birmingham and Manchester to develop future visions for their areas – linked 

Manchester, Salford and Trafford (and subsequently Tameside) in producing a joint 

strategy for economic and social development of the area. City Pride produced its first 

‘vision’ document in 1994 71. The collaborative process through which this document 

was produced was an important stimulus not only to cross-authority collaboration but 

also to partnership working across the public, private and voluntary sectors since it 

drew into the discussion a large array of stakeholders who had previously not been 

greatly involved. The success of such joint working proved an important lever in 

attracting new public investment through government regeneration programmes and 

private investment in new businesses and infrastructure. 

4.69 More recently, the Manchester Knowledge Capital Initiative, established in 2003, is a 

partnership between a wide range of public and private sector partners that include the 

four authorities of Manchester, Trafford, Salford and Tameside, MIDAS, NWDA, 

universities and hospitals, the LSC, the Manchester LSP and Manchester Enterprises. The 

aim of the Partnership is to realise Manchester’s full economic potential as a truly world 

class Knowledge Capital through “maximising the city’s unique assets, centred on 

knowledge and new ideas”. 

4.70 The Manchester Salford Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder, one of four pathfinders in 

the NW, aims “to build stable, sustainable communities, where housing and social 

infrastructure meets the need of all citizens”. The two authorities are working together 

to tackle low housing demand and abandonment in the worst affected areas in 

Manchester and Salford through the removal of standard and obsolete stock and the 

creation of more sustainable housing and neighbourhood management. In the north of 

the conurbation, a second HMR Pathfinder links Oldham and Rochdale in the same 

national programme. 

71 Manchester City Council (1994) City Pride: a focus for the future, Manchester, Salford and Trafford. 

105


106 

4.71 The sub-region is also working ever closer on the production of the CRDP and the 

Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS). Manchester is working with the other authorities in 

producing a sub-regional spatial strategy which will feed into the revised RSS. The subregional 

strategy promotes improvements in the City-Region’s economic performance 

and a reduction in disparities within the sub-region. 

4.72 One of the perhaps inevitable sensitivities in such collaborative liaisons is the 

relationship between Manchester City and the other districts within the conurbation and 

beyond. Manchester has developed a rich experience in public-private collaboration, 

associated in particular (but by no means exclusively) with urban regeneration 

programmes. Its role as the regional centre and core of the conurbation, and its rather 

muscular approach to strategic development has at times prompted suspicions and 

resentments amongst its surrounding neighbours, which have been fed by a long 

history of the perceived imbalance between a big city and ‘tributary’ authorities. This is 

exacerbated by the high degree of balkanisation of the conurbation, divided as it is into 

no fewer than ten local authority districts. Sensitivity in handling such suspicions is 

clearly one of the continuing challenges to the effective development of cross-authority 

collaboration within a City-Region context. However, recent developments such as those 

noted above suggest that at least in some fields a degree of genuine collaborative 

activity is developing productively. 

Conclusion 

4.73 The City-Region of Greater Manchester is inevitably somewhat more complex than that 

of Greater Bristol. The heterogeneous nature of the social and economic composition of 

the conurbation means that many of the flows of people, goods and services are more 

convoluted than in Avon. The northern and southern parts of Greater Manchester are 

strikingly different – with the south far more suburban, more affluent and commuterdominated 

than is the mix of old industrial settlements to the north. While Manchester 

has long played a pivotal role as the financial and cultural core of the conurbation – 

and this role has become ever more salient over time, as is reflected in the increasing 

level of commuting from the north – the constituent districts to the north maintain some 

of their separateness and distinctiveness within the conurbation. To the north of Greater 

Manchester, this is even more the case with the belt of industrial towns stretching from 

Blackburn to Burnley and the Colne Valley. 

4.74 Moreover, the fact that Greater Manchester is closely fringed with other major 

conurbations means that the wide City-Region to the east and west is less clear-cut than 

for most of Avon. The area between Liverpool and Manchester is split between the two 

in terms of commuting patterns and the housing market; similarly, there is some 

ambiguity about connections with smaller towns and villages in the Pennines. 

4.75 Nevertheless, the message from most of the evidence on commuting and the housing 

market suggests that the Greater Manchester City-Region extends well beyond the 

boundaries of the conurbation: certainly into much of North Cheshire and High Peak; it 

probably includes Warrington; and probably stretches into Rossendale. The functional 

City-Region area would appear to be larger than that currently used in the Core City 

Development Plan.


4.76 There is some difficulty in outlining the way in which the economy of this area 

operates because of the surprising lack of hard evidence about supply chains. 

Addressing this gap would seem to be an important prerequisite for the development of 

economic strategies by some of the sub-regional agencies in the area. However, what 

can be said is that the twin roles of the Airport and of the area’s universities are vital 

components of the Greater Manchester City-Region: the first as a gateway to national 

and global markets and influence; and the second a key aspect of the skills base of the 

knowledge-based industries in the area. 

4.77 Moreover, as with Avon, the evidence suggests that many sectors of the area’s economy 

depend fundamentally on the critical mass of social capital within the area. As has been 

shown, this is true of the creative industries and of the ‘higher’ end of financial and 

professional services for which face-to-face contact and informal networking are 

critically important elements of the agglomeration economies associated with urban 

location and effective competitiveness. 

4.78 Perhaps the most striking evidence is for cultural services and entertainment. The 

geographical reach of theatres and concerts is impressively wide. There is not a single 

district in England and Wales, for example, that did not have at least one ticketpurchaser 

for theatrical performances in Greater Manchester over the period 1998-2003. 

While there is a concentration of participants (for cultural events, entertainment and 

shopping) within the broad City-Region itself, the overall spread is far wider. While 

there is no historical data to suggest whether these catchments are larger than in the 

past, the logic of all the accumulated evidence is that for these higher-order activities 

core cities such as Manchester have come to play an ever more dominant role over a 

wide and wider area. 

4.79 There is a plethora of agencies and informal partnerships addressing various strategies 

within and across the Greater Manchester City-Region. To an extent, the variety of 

scales at which City-Regions can be defined suggests that this multiplicity of bodies has 

some merit. However, there may be some benefit in regional agencies like the 

Government Office or the Regional Development agency encouraging a somewhat 

more formal partnership across districts not only from Greater Manchester itself but 

including some of the districts beyond the conurbation’s boundaries. 

107

108 

CHAPTER 5 

Implications 

5.1 The aim of this working paper has not been to make recommendations about the 

extent and shape of specific City-Regions in England. Rather, it has attempted to throw 

some light on the ways in which, however they are defined, City-Regions function as 

economic and social entities. In this light, some tentative conclusions can be drawn 

from the work undertaken so far. 

City-region definitions 

5.2 It is clear that the outcome of demarcating formal City-Region boundaries depends 

strongly on the methods used, on the criteria selected and on the specific types of flow 

that are being measured. The detailed data for travel-to-work do not provide definitive 

solutions to the geometry of City-Regions. The patterns alter depending on the 

methodology, and they are markedly different for different occupational groups. 

Nevertheless, since the focus of interest in City-Regions is in exploring the implications 

for policy interventions that may enhance the competitiveness of areas, the most 

appropriate geometry may be the smaller number of generously-defined travel-to-work 

catchments associated with the flows of professional and managerial workers (in the 

bottom-up approach) and the pre-defined nodes with a 25% cut-off (in the top-down 

approach). The relevant maps (Figures 2.5 and 2.9) produce similar catchment areas for 

some 30-40 nodes. These could provide the basis for a more selective focus on a 

smaller number of genuinely significant urban-based City-Regions which give 

prominence to a few genuinely big core centres. This is much in the spirit of what City- 

Regions can be taken to imply. 

5.3 The value of thinking of spatially extensive regions of this sort is reinforced by the 

evidence of housing-market definitions where the maps of residential churn in Greater 

Bristol and Greater Manchester again suggest the wide extent of linkages associated 

with residential mobility. 

5.4 Such an extensive definition of City-Regions is even more strongly supported by the 

pattern of cultural and recreational flows to the major cities. It is clear from the range of 

examples from the Bristol and Manchester case studies that the ‘cultural’ catchment area 

of major cities can be very extensive. The examples of attendance at theatres and 

musical performances and football support are prime examples of the far-reaching pull 

of the core cities for major cultural and entertainment events. 

5.5 This reinforces the argument that City-Region boundaries are essentially fuzzy and issuespecific. 

Given this, it may not be most appropriate to consider formal administrative 

arrangements which demarcate ‘single’ City-Regions, either in the form of a fixed 

administrative reorganisation or even conurbation-wide city mayors. Rather, the 

implication may be to develop a variable geometry of more informal cross-authority 

collaboration, with different geometries for different types of service delivery.


5.6 While informal rather than statutory partnerships may be an appropriate response to the 

inherently fuzzy nature of City-Region boundaries, such coalitions are likely to be more 

effective and to command more credibility if government were to introduce appropriate 

incentives to encourage their establishment. There is a need to explore what incentives 

would be most appropriate in this context. 

5.7 Moreover, the partnerships may need to differ for different service areas. Most of the 

existing partnerships exemplified in the Bristol and Manchester examples are 

predominantly drawn from authorities within the metropolitan area boundaries of Avon 

and Greater Manchester. Yet, as many of the examples show, the housing, cultural and 

leisure flows encompass far wider areas than this. The coalitions themselves need 

therefore to be geographically inclusive, recognising the extent of the City-Regions 

apparent from the mappings in previous sections of this report. They also need to 

recognise the sensitivities associated with the relationship between core cities and 

‘peripheral’ areas within their ambit. 

5.8 The argument that the encouragement of informal coalitions may be more appropriate 

than a formal reorganisation of local governance is reinforced by the evidence of the 

top-down nodal approach to defining City-Regions. Not all parts of the country are in 

practice tied in to the ambit of one or other big city. Indeed, a conclusion from the 

various approaches to defining City-Regions may be that we should identify the twentyor-so 

major employment nodes across the country and use these as the basis for 

exploring the most appropriate combinations of areas that form their effective City- 

Region for different types of function. This would suggest the geographical basis on 

which to incentivise the establishment of coalitions of districts to develop strategy on a 

City-Region basis. Such an approach is strongly supported by the fact that levels of GVA 

per capita are higher in the big cities than in their tributary areas. 72 Ensuring the greater 

competitiveness of the core cities must therefore be a key element in tackling economic 

disparities across English regions. 

City-Regions and economic competitiveness 

5.9 The economic implications of City-Regions have emerged quite strongly from the 

exemplar areas of Greater Bristol and Greater Manchester. For many businesses, 

markets are essentially national or global – especially for the larger companies as 

exemplified by the aerospace industry. The City-Region has relatively little meaning in 

terms of markets, except for smaller businesses in some sectors – nowhere more so 

than with the cultural and creative industries – where local markets within the City- 

Region are of considerable importance. 

5.10 However, there are very strong arguments for the salience of City-Regions on the 

supply side, whether for large or small businesses. Even for aerospace, for example, 

local links between companies and with producer services and local universities have 

been shown to be very significant. There are three elements to this. Local linkages 

between producers and producer services and the procurement of goods and services 

(especially in sectors such as marketing, design, recruitment and training services, 

printing and office supplies) are significant from both of the case study areas, either in 

terms of hard evidence as in Greater Bristol or from interviewees’ views. The availability 

72 SURF (2004) Releasing the national economic potential of provincial City-Regions: the rationale for and 

implications of a ‘Northern Way’ growth strategy: an ODPM New Horizons study. 

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of other related businesses in a locality is a significant element in the supply of goods 

and services. Critical mass and a dense mesh of potential business links therefore 

become vital aspects of the rationale for agglomeration economies in the big cities. 

Related to this is the importance of links with local universities and research institutions. 

This is both a question of exploiting research links and of the advantage of being able 

to recruit from a skilled potential workforce drawn from student populations. 

5.11 Second, and most importantly, the density of social networks and informal contacts 

emerges as critically important across a range of economic activity. Again, the creative 

industries provide a striking example, but the argument is equally valid for other 

sectors. The social capital provided by the scale and density of contacts in big cities is a 

key ingredient in achieving competitiveness and market edge for many businesses. This 

is not restricted to small businesses in sectors such as creative industries. It is equally 

evident in the emphasis placed on social capital and the density of networks across 

businesses in legal and financial services. Local proximity to other service providers and 

clients is highly important both for job procurement and knowledge transfer, as is 

emphasised in the extensive literature on clusters. For example, Cook et al, 73 in 

studying the advantages of clustering in financial services firms in London, found that 

one of the main advantages of proximity is that it enables physical interaction or faceto-face 

contact to take place. This is important in establishing relationships, building 

trust and conducting negotiations by enabling more information to be communicated 

and non-verbal signals to be accessed. The Polynet study confirmed this critical role 

played by face-to-face contact as the preferred means of communication. Despite the 

growth in other means of communication such as e-mail, telephone and video 

conferencing, these are considered to be poor substitutes for face-to-face contact. 

Certain high-order business within the financial services sector cannot take place when 

this is not possible. The Cook study found that firms rate face-to-face meetings as being 

necessary particularly when “conducting complex transactions where it is important to 

fashion agreement while reducing the chances of misunderstandings or creating 

antagonism”. 

5.12 The importance of informal social links is also strongly supported by the evidence from 

the financial and professional services sector in Manchester which suggests that 

contemporary processes of change in the business world are reinforcing the significance 

of big cities and their tributary areas. There is a growing split between ‘back office’ 

functions that can readily be routinised (and hence more likely to be outsourced 

overseas or to be marketed through e-retailing and the web), and personal services and 

advice which require face-to-face contact and skilled staff. The latter are precisely the 

areas on which notions of a ‘knowledge economy’ are based; and it is the larger cities 

that increasingly have an advantage and a pull in this respect. 

Implications for economic competitiveness 

5.13 There is in this, a complementarity between a view of economic competitiveness as 

being a function of dispersed networks and as a function of geographical proximity. 

Much of what has been explored in this working paper has stressed the role of 

proximity in defining City-Regions, but as the commuter flows between London and the 

major cities suggest (and as the interviews reinforce in terms of links between major 

73 Cook, G.A.S. Pandit, N.R. Beaverstock, J.V. Taylor, P.J. and Pain, K. (2003) Financial services clustering and its 

significance for London, Corporation of London.


companies), many of the most important flows of information and people are between 

large centres, whether or not they are proximate. The implication of much of our 

evidence is that the social capital of big cities is growing in importance as a 

determinant of business location and business success, both in terms of high valueadded 

activities and of small fragmented sectors such as the creative industries. If 

knowledge-based activities are gravitating ever more strongly to the big cities because 

of their critical mass of social capital, their location in the cities then has significant City- 

Region impacts in terms of labour catchments and of many elements of more routinised 

producer service activities. 

5.14 This provides an important part of the logic in moving towards a City-Region geometry 

for strategic planning. There may, for example, be specific implications for transport 

priorities. Many of the maps of City-Regions show how critical good physical access is 

in influencing the detailed shape of the catchments of the large cities. The influence of 

the motorways on many of Bristol’s catchments is a case in point; areas off the 

motorway system have less-than-expected links. The same is true in the North West in 

relation to the line of accessibility afforded by the M6 and M62 motorways. There is an 

argument for refocusing priorities towards the improvement of intra-City-Region 

infrastructure rather than inter-city infrastructure. This should be allied to improving the 

accessibility of key airport nodes which (as is especially evident from the example of 

Manchester Airport) are critical elements in the location decisions of firms which need 

good global connections – and was an important element in the decision of the Bank of 

New York to locate in Manchester. 

5.15 And the same City-Region logic applies to strategies for other types of service – for 

example, skills, cultural services and housing; all of which need to cross the artificial 

bounds of administrative areas. The evidence of the growing number of informal 

partnerships that are being established across local authority boundaries has to be seen 

as a sign of an awareness of such trends amongst local policy-makers. On housing, for 

example, the earlier analysis showed the growing scale of the catchment areas of Bristol 

and Manchester. Planning for this requires strategies for areas beyond the boundaries of 

the metropolitan areas. Indeed, if, as seems already apparent, there is an increasing 

concentration of knowledge-based economic activities in the big cities – capitalising on 

their critical mass – an important part of the local services which traditionally provided 

the rationale of smaller towns may be at risk. For at least some of the smaller 

settlements, the future may increasingly be one that relies on commuting and the 

creation of attractive residential environments. This reinforces the argument about City- 

Region housing strategies. 

5.16 For business competitiveness, the argument for a City-Region approach is essentially 

connected to the agglomeration economies linked to the formal and especially to the 

informal face-to-face contacts between businesses. As exemplified by WEAF’s role in the 

aerospace industry in Greater Bristol, City-Region bodies could play important roles in 

information exchange, in representation for marketing purposes and in labour supply. 

5.17 There is also an implication arising from the paucity of information and understanding 

of the workings of City-Region economies. The research for this working paper 

required very heavy investment of time to identify relevant individuals and organisations 

from whom information and opinions could be culled. There is little national 

information that can throw light on many of the types of flows that need to be 

understood as the driving mechanisms that underlie City-Regions. It seems likely, for 

example, that information on supply-chain linkages and on the roles of face-to-face 

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contact and of social capital more generally can only be derived from place-specific 

data. The Polynet 74 project found the same difficulty in gathering information about 

links between businesses and the flows of significant information and influence. A 

major part of its analysis had to be based on inferring linkages on the basis of mapping 

subsidiary offices of major companies. One of the major challenges for future research 

must be to gather harder data on supply chains and on the role of informal business 

contacts that could usefully inform policy and economic strategies. 

74 Institute of Community Studies (2005) Polynet.

A framework for City-Regions - Newcastle University

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