Opening up for business

Professor Dylan Jones-Evans OBE is assistant pro vice chancellor (Enterprise) at the University of South Wales

In his latest budget last month, the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed the UK government would be scrapping the Severn bridge tolls by the end of next year. 

This follows considerable pressure from various business groups and a vote by all political parties in the National Assembly for Wales for backing the abolition of tolls on the crossings between the West of England and South Wales.

This will finally bring to an end what many businesspeople see as a tax, not only on entering Wales, but on future opportunities for greater investment and access to key markets by Welsh firms.

When the Severn Bridge was opened on September 8, 1966, the charge for crossing into Wales was set at two shillings and sixpence (or 12.5p in today’s money). 

Not surprisingly, when government gets a chance to tax the public (despite the building of the Second Severn Crossing in 1992), this fee has gradually increased over the last 51 years and now stands at £6.70 for cars and £20 for lorries. 

While season tickets are available for regular users, this can still cost up to £5,000 per lorry per annum to cross regularly from England to Wales, which will mean considerable direct savings for freight companies bringing goods in and out of Wales. 

But what could be the benefit to the rest of the South Wales economy after the tolls are scrapped? 

With many seeing the West of England housing and commercial property market around Bristol overheating, this may attract more people and businesses to relocate to areas such as Newport and Monmouthshire. 

As a result, there could be more potential opportunities for new developments in these areas that could benefit not only local construction companies but, more importantly, those councils that want to see more business investment in the region.

However, the most important message that this will send to potential investors as well as existing businesses is that South Wales is open for business. 

As someone who used the bridges regularly for four years as I commuted from Cardiff to Bristol and back, arriving at the toll booths felt that I was being penalised for entering Wales and paying nearly £7 every day for the privilege of doing so.

And by creating a major psychological barrier that has seen Wales as being separate to the rest of the UK economy, this may have deterred businesses on both sides of the Severn from seeking opportunities and creating wealth in South Wales. 

Hopefully, that will end now. 

But this can’t be the only factor, and with 80,000 vehicles crossing the bridges every day, there is also an urgent need for the Welsh Government to make a positive decision on the M4 Relief Road to maximise the benefits for commuters and businesses. 

The scrapping of the tolls could be transformational, but only if we take full advantage of the opportunities. At the moment, there is no better time to do so, not only for potential developments in Chepstow and the Severn Bridge/tunnel area but also in Wales’ third city, Newport, with IQE’s £400m compound semiconductor cluster in Newport, the development of the National Cyber and Software Academies for developing future skills for major industries and the opening of the International Convention Centre Wales at the Celtic Manor in 2019 that will transform the local hospitality industry. 

Given this, the UK and Welsh governments have a huge opportunity to shout from the top of the bridges that South Wales is now open to business. 

I can hope that they do this and will be marketing this message not only across the UK but also the rest of the world. 

Liz Maher, president of South Wales Chamber of Commerce

South east Wales and Newport – the place to do business and invest in. 

It’s so important for all of us – politicians local and national, people who live and work here as well as the business community whatever their size and bodies like us at the South Wales Chamber – to get that message out there. 

We need to recognise the success of existing businesses, but those businesses need access to markets and opportunities to grow.

External investors need to see Wales as holding opportunities for growth and where we have concerns as a Chamber we should be voicing them. 

That’s why the reduction in the tolls in January is to be welcomed. Yes, you might say it’s a small step, but all journeys start with that first step and we in the Newport business community and at the Chamber, certainly believe it’s a step in the right direction – in fact, the government has announced they are being scrapped completely by the end of the year.

There’s so much more to do though if we are to grow the economic and social wellbeing of our region though and we’ve all got to engage in that process. 

We can talk as long as we like about what needs to be done under the Future Generations Act in Wales, but it’s the doing of it that will have the impact. 

Reducing the tolls is the first step which will reduce that sense of a barrier to getting into Wales. 

It will stimulate housebuilding that will lead to jobs in the construction sector locally but we don’t want south east Wales to be a commuter town for the south west of England. 

We want, we need, our region to be an engine of growth within Wales. That it can be. 

We don’t lack the ability or the enterprise – certainly when I look across our chamber membership I see fantastic businesses, from start-ups through to mature businesses, always looking for the opportunity to grow, develop new markets and employ more staff locally.

This announcement of a reduction in the tolls needs to be followed quickly by a decision on the M4 relief road, otherwise all we’ve achieved is a lower price to get in a traffic jam that runs often from the Severn Bridge to the Brynglas Tunnels. 

What would that be saying about Wales as an accessible destination for people to come to work in or base their businesses in?

We need not just decisions to start those projects we’ve spent so long talking about – a tidal lagoon, new hotel space within Newport, metro improvements across our region north to south as well as east to west. 

But we need the procurement processes behind those projects to actively work to open up the opportunities to local businesses, not create the barriers to engagement that they currently do. 

We all need to engage to make sure the potential that sits within us and our future generations is achieved for the benefit of all who live and work across south east Wales and beyond. 

Wales needs to know that our place as a destination to do business will not be undermined by the negative messages that delays send out. 

As much as we need to establish our place within Europe we need public officials and political representatives to ensure that domestic activity and decision making is not ignored or delayed only to find that the mantra that ‘everything has its place’ ends up meaning it’s not in Wales though.

Debbie Wilcox, leader, Newport City Council

The tolls being scrapped is an opportunity for Newport and one we will fully grasp with both hands. How it will turn out is anyone’s guess. Bristol is overheating. Housing is still cheaper here and there are some great places to live in this area with a great mix of city and rural. We are well placed between Cardiff and Bristol and have excellent transport links – both road and rail – with the rest of the country. 

We are looking at ways of turning Newport into a 21st century city, which we will discuss at the City Summit, which is being held at the Celtic Manor in January.

Bob Greenland, deputy leader, Monmouthshire County Council

The scrapping of the tolls opens up huge opportunities for us here in Monmouthshire. 

We are so close to Bristol, which is powering ahead and we can gain from that. We are faced with opportunities but we are also faced with challenges. 

One of these is the housing situation, but it is not all bad news. On one side you have the people moving over here from Bristol, whose spending power for property is much greater, but on the downside there are some young people in Monmouthshire who will find it more difficult to get onto the housing ladder. 

Have we got enough housing? Are those houses in the right places? We need to look again at our local development plan to assess what we need to do as one of the most important areas for us is to provide housing for young people who want to buy their first homes. 

We want to keep our young people in this area but to do that we have got to provide job opportunities and with that housing, which is something we accept.

We have got to show businesses that Monmouthshire is a place they can come and set up. We need to take advantage of new opportunities.

These are exciting times for the area. 

Everyone is realising now that Monmouthshire is not a county of sleepy market towns, but is somewhere that is powering up. We have to be confident, though, to strike a balance between the two. 

People come here because of what the area is like, because of the market towns and the countryside, but if we are going to build new houses not everyone is going to welcome them. 

This is something we have to work with our existing residents together with their representatives on the council when we look again at the LDP.