Opinion: ‘Government put its money where its mouth is for Peterborough university plans’

The Government have put money where their mouth is, particularly this week. £14.6 million to be precise. That’s Peterborough’s share of the new Getting Building Fund.

It’s one of the biggest single awards in the country. When the Prime Minister said he wanted to ‘level up’ and support areas outside the rich London bubble, he meant it. Once again, we have an announcement to celebrate.

The money will fund a research super hub on the site of the new Peterborough University.

It doesn’t just allow construction of the facility – it makes the whole university project much more than just a university.

What exactly is a ‘super hub’? Fortunately, it’s not a specious bit of jargon. There is a concrete plan to partner research with manufacturing, digital and environmental companies from our region and internationally.

Put simply, the hub means more jobs in our city. Like the university itself, by specialising in the things we do best, it will create the well-paid jobs that Peterborough needs for its future. I am relentlessly positive about that future. Because we have so much going for us, there is no reason why we can’t prosper. It just takes some vision and some help from the top.

That’s what the ‘levelling up’ agenda is all about. Those opportunities are what a Conservative government was elected to deliver.

Obviously, we didn’t expect the pandemic back in December, which has diverted so much of our national energy and effort into tackling Coronavirus. That will have to continue for some months to come. Yet our long-term needs are still there and haven’t been forgotten.

I never doubted the Government would stick to its plans. For me, it’s about guaranteeing that Peterborough is part of them. The North and the Midlands are the more obvious and most-discussed priorities for funding.

After promising to lobby for Peterborough, I was bending ministers’ ears across Westminster and Whitehall for weeks.

This lobbying is paying off. We got even more funding for the hub than was originally requested, avoiding delay. Crucially, the super hub is shovel-ready. With £14.6 million, we can are close to getting plenty of shovels going.

The launch event for the university was already a significant moment.

Starting as a partnership with Anglia Ruskin University, our new institution is set to open for its first 2,000 students in two years’ time, specialising in engineering, agri-tech and other technical subjects.

But the vision goes much further. By steadily increasing those technical courses, the aim is to reach 12,500 students before the end of the decade. At that scale, it’s possible to become a fully independent university.

The research super hub is the real game changer, both for the university project and for the city. Firms will want to relocate here. Others will start up through the hub. Peterborough can become known around the world as a centre of innovation. That means new jobs, but also new homes, new restaurants, new pubs and new transport infrastructure. It means the potential for decades of prosperity. This has been a difficult time. Yet our city really showed its character, as people helped one another get through. As we work to recover, we need to know that our future is bright.