I am delighted that the Government has awarded Cheltenham £20m from the Levelling-Up Fund to build the Innovation Centre in the Cheltenham Cyber Park. It is fantastic news, and the latest example of major Government investment in our town.
With GCHQ as the anchor tenant, the Innovation Centre will be home to academia, tech start-ups, businesses and the wider ecosystem we need to drive innovation and to make Cheltenham’s cyber sector thrive.
I want to address head-on the questions that some have raised about whether Cheltenham should be benefiting from money allocated for ‘levelling up’.
Absolutely it should. I make no apology for having argued hard for Cheltenham to receive this cash. And that’s because, as I said in my meetings with the Levelling-Up minister, our town for all its Regency architecture has areas of intense deprivation. Three of the 18 wards I represent are in the bottom ten per cent of income per capita anywhere in the UK.
That’s plain wrong, and it has to change.
I passionately believe that the best way to do so is by creating opportunity here at home, new life chances for people to go as far as their talents will take them. Indeed I first came up with the cyber vision back in 2014 because I wanted Britain to be a tech superpower, but also so that ours is a community where there is always the chance for everyone to build a better future.
I want a young person walking down Princess Elizabeth Way who has not had the easiest start in life to be able to see the bright lights of opportunity here in Cheltenham. Taking those opportunities requires talent and self-discipline, but I know those qualities are evenly spread across our town.
Driving social mobility isn’t just the moral thing to do. It’s smart too. It’s only by having a strong economy that you generate the revenues to pay for modern public services.
With this latest cash the Government will have injected over £53m in total into Cheltenham’s cyber vision. Thank you to all those who supported the bid, including the borough council.
Cheltenham is truly on the up.
[Column published in The Echo and Cheltenham Post]
[To watch a video of the announcement, please click HERE]