Opinion: Helping to shape our city’s future

Well, that’s exactly what Peterborough is doing.

I was delighted to host the launch of our early-stage proposal to create a new research and development institute for sustainable energy at our award-winning ARU University Peterborough.

This new centre would create 9,000 new high skilled, high wage jobs right here in Peterborough. It will really put our city on the map.

The research and development facility will focus on the safe transmission, distribution and use of hydrogen domestically and industrially.

It would also work on new technologies around the safe storage of hydrogen and carbon dioxide, as well sustainable fuels for aviation.

At the event launch we lobbied Government for £30 million investment for the new green energy research hub.

It will attract a lot of businesses to Peterborough, including industry giants such as Cadent, Rolls Royce, BP and Shell.

That’s why, along with Peterborough City Council, TWI, and Anglia Ruskin University, I am making the case for this project to come to Peterborough.

I am confident we can make this happen and take this to the next stage. It will of course require some sort of government intervention to make it work but we know the Government see our potential already.

This is evident in the hundreds plus of millions already invested in our city since I became our local MP.

We’ve received £34 million to build the new University and a state-of-the-art research hub, £48 million to build a new Station Quarter.

A £23 million Towns Fund boost for regeneration projects in the city centre and we are building a brand new NHS Community Diagnostic Centre in Peterborough meaning more 60,000 extra scans, tests and checks every year. We are also getting more beds at Peterborough City Hospital.

This was highlighted at the event itself with some real excitement about the successful projects made possible thanks to the Government’s investment to back Peterborough’s potential.

This includes the second teaching building and Living Lab public science facility, which was part-funded with £20 million from the Government’s Levelling Up Fund. I visited the site recently and it is on track for completion for the new academic year in September as planned.

Extra funding will be needed to progress the campus further than the third phase and, as I have said before, we have achieved a lot but there is always lots more to do.

This project is at the top of my priorities. I’ve always said I want a high skilled, high wage economy here in Peterborough and this is another important step in the right direction. This is genuinely exciting news for our city. Decisions like this will shape our city, guarantee our future health, wealth and happiness, and make Peterborough a leader in energy transition and in the jobs of the future.