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i understand your into the demographics the big picture, that london is your fixation and that your in need of your next fix
well here is just one more of those little things you rather not talk about
my neighbor runs a self employed business as a Gardener, right now he has to compete with a existing community based team of guys who are doing community service, i would imagine if you then add thousands on a months work experience who are on £65 a fortnight, even when he offers a wider range of services the fact is this will kill his business, will he think it's for the greater good, and will the guys who are doing this gain anything from the experience, well this is not serious training it's not to add to there skills.
plus will you explain the difference between this and community service that a court hands down. this will make a right turnaround to the saying "if you can't do the time don't do the crime". now it will be if your going to do the time you might as well do the crime.

1 Tam o EH ?

One of the big complexities here is the population figures. Let's just start with the fact that actually all of Scotland has only about 5 million people in it.

But there's more to it than that - how many of those 5 million are 'productive' and fully so at that? Leaving out the NEETs, there's a significant number of people who move to the more rural areas of Scotland, effectively, to 'semi-retire'.

So, where would you suggest to put a rival to Silicon Valley? The East End of London, e.g. Tower Hamlets, Newham and the like, have literally thousands of people per sq km, and some pretty good transport and other infrastructure (Tube lines, DLR, Trains, buses).

I mean you would hardly set up such a thing in the Highlands, for example, with its 9 people per sq km, poor transport infrastructure, shortage of affordable accommodation, etc. would you?

Last year I attended a Climate Change seminar at Imperial College, London. I suggested as a result of hearing the presentations that a viable strategy for a near pensioner was to move to the south of France/Spain for a few years than back to the UK as the World got hotter for five years and five years later to Scotland as Scotland provides free social care for the elderly and should also be a bit warmer in a decade of so's time!

[I am however well aware that Scotland will probably have a problem continuing their generous free care fro the elderly during this decades long economic Depression which we are all just starting to 'enjoy'.]

#3

Actually you're very wrong. If you want to set up a company that's involved in developing Silicon Valley type stuff then the Highlands is exactly the place you want to put it because of the quality of life.

All that commuting in the London area is so inefficient and utterly boring.

Sutara, 17.5 million people live within 90 minutes of Milton Keynes. 2.5 million are in Greater Manchester, so why not invest there? Property is cheaper, open public space is more readily available, the air is cleaner etc.

You are presenting the London/South East centric view of the world that many people present as the truth. I've lived in the North West, South East and now the South West. I worked in London and hated every moment. The rest of the country has much to offer yet is all to often overlooked. Stereotypes like the one presented in The Apprentice last week ("Manchester is 2 years behind London") only continue this.

#5,

quite agree. I had to get the 6:11 train, stand all the way in before my day at work and then stand all the way home. Blow my nose at night and admire the black, sooty content of my tissue. The rest of the UK offers FAR more than London.

I can't help feeling that my future lies in London, which is a shame as I don't really want to be part of the Scottish brain-drain, but Java programmer jobs in the North-East are few and far between. Also if I end up having to move away, I might as well go to London and get a good salary, rather than toiling away in the central belt again, doing the same job for less money. There's the thing though - London isn't the only brain-drain; the central belt sucks people from the rest of Scotland too. The parallels are similar - London transport infrastructure improvements seem to come way ahead of everywhere else on the list of priorities, but the same is true of the central belt. Edinburgh trams, M74/M80 upgrades, and for all the moaning that went on over the cancelled Glasgow and Edinburgh rail links, at least they were scheduled, whereas things like Aberdeen's AWPR are still dragged out as long as possible, and who knows if the roads to the Highlands will ever get the improvements they so obviously need? So it's okay for Sutara and others who think the same to say that London has good transport infrastructure, but whose fault is it that the rest of the UK isn't up to scratch? Which brings me to my next point:

#3: "I mean you would hardly set up such a thing in the Highlands, for example, with its 9 people per sq km, poor transport infrastructure, shortage of affordable accommodation, etc. would you?"

It's a chicken and the egg scenario - why would you set up a business/industry somewhere with poor transport infrastructure and a lack of accommodation? Why would you spend money upgrading transport infrastructure and accommodation when there's no one there to use it? One of them has to give - either companies start moving to the Highlands and force upgrades, or governments start upgrading and in doing so encourage companies to make use of the opportunties presented. Either way, concentrating all the money for capital investments into one area isn't going to help matters.

And of course, we all know where the money for all London's big projects has come from, don't we? It would have been nice if Scotland in general - and Aberdeen in particular, since it's where the money is generated - had enjoyed the same benefits that London has enjoyed on the back of North Sea oil production. Just think what could have been done with the money wasted on things like the Millennium Dome...

5. At 12:08pm on 08 Nov 2010, Wee-Scamp wrote:

"Actually you're very wrong. If you want to set up a company that's involved in developing Silicon Valley type stuff then the Highlands is exactly the place you want to put it because of the quality of life.

All that commuting in the London area is so inefficient and utterly boring."

Perhaps you're too young to remember Silicon Glen, Scotlands answer to Silicon Valley? Wonder what happened to that.

6 million passengers travel by public transport into London in the space of 2 hours. Hardly inefficient. Overstretched and expensive, maybe.

"One thing it suggests is that other parts of Britain, and particularly those with devolved powers, may not have the Westminster government on its side in developing technology clusters elsewhere, so those nations and regions will have to work much harder on their own behalf."

I am impressed you have noticed this, only I think it should have read "will" and not "may" and it's a pity you haven't came up with a solution.

Of course given the fact that if those particular parts with devolved powers were to develop them into fully independent powers then you could have said;

"Scotland is (obviously) further away, and has its own strengths, such as finance or oil and gas, so it is unaffected by London's dominance."

#9

LOL.... Too young? I wish!!

The issue with the so called Silicon Glen was nothing to do with where it was geographically but what it consisted of which was mainly inward investing companies and not indigenous ones. So - when things got a little rough they just ran away or indeed shifted their emphasis to other areas of the world.

The real problem with the idea of doing anything involving a need for real investment outside the S East of Englandshire is the lack of availability of risk equity capital. Despite Scotland being the HQ to some fairly major financial services companies it remains one of the most difficult places on the planet to start a properly funded company.

I'd love to start a company building small electric vehicles and a small sports car with a highly efficient engine. I could get the team together to do that in a couple of months but I know I'd never ever raise the money so I won't bother.

#5

Quality of life - yes to some degree. Not much retail investment, poor transport links (both air and rail) and where would the work-force come from? Also, only limited access to culture like art, museams, opera, etc., etc. Limited health service provisions too.

Of course if we 'imported' lots of people from other places into somewhere such as the Highlands, then there would be problems with all the extra housing needed, schooling, transport, health services, etc., etc.


#6

Actually, I wasn't. The question was, as I see it, why isn't the PM suggesting such a development in Scotland, and I note that the various places you refer to are, as is the East End of London, not in Scotland at all. Interesting that no-one put the more densely populated and better infrastructured urban parts of Scotland 'into the frame'. I wonder just why not?

#8

Yes - it IS a chicken and egg scenario, but more importantly it's also one of longer-term and better national economic development planning.

Actually what Douglas is describing is one of the main reasons Scotland needs independence. Whilst London is capital of the union the constituent countries won't get a look in.

Scotland's place as energy capital of Europe is now becoming a transient. The money taken from oil exploration has wealthily rewarded Scotland and the UK as a whole. As times run on and an industry goes into decline, there needs to be the plans in place, long, before to ensure continuation of industry and prosperity. Less we forget the repeated problems in the UK when this goes undermined and it take decades of redevelopment to get an area back on track. There are still places on our land that remain artefacts to the uneven distribution of industry. The south east sees a large sector of finance and service industries the rest of the country could only hope for. I would like to think the governments sees this flag from the past and distribute new technologies to the fars of this land the South west, North West, East West, Wales, Northern Ireland & Scotland.

Based on the growing importance people put on the quality of life I think the prospects are quite rosy for Scotland. This is part of the reason why businesses such as biotech and life sciences are strong here. The other good thing is devolution which means Scotland now tries to think of its own solutions to problems. State intervention which created Silicon Glen is not the way, now we should concentrate on providing good education and other aspects which enhance quality of life.

My husband works in London at the moment but we don't want to bring up the kids there so he spends four days a week in London and four days at home.Wish he could find a comparable job nearer to home.

#15 said

This is part of the reason why businesses such as biotech and life sciences are strong here.

But they're not really and the millisecond one of those businesses shows any signs of actually doing well we sell it off usually to some oversea company.

Surely the answer is as identified by Alex Salmond, the provision of high speed broadband to every household in Scotland that wants it. That would create a boom in people who can work remotely and want quality of life. A keyboard with a view of the Cullins has tremendous appeal. Those that crave the lights and bustle of the big smoke can have it. This country is suffering from being Londoncentric. The need for expensive motorways, bridges over Firths, polluting air travel, and high speed rail then shrinks away.

Of course, reading today's stories, if everyone in Scotland stopped drinking and smoking, then we'd have £4 billion plus to invest in all sorts of regeneration projects, without being beholden to anyone else.

#18

I lived and worked in London for a very long time, but I have no great desire to return there. In fact, I have ducked all but one 'need' to even go back and visit. London IS a great city in many respects, great access to the arts and culture (though often at a price), good infrastrure (in the main), good access to retail and services (mostly)but like all densely populated urban areas, it has a big number of problems that go with that. Say what you will, it is very crowded and busy and, for some, that is its charm.

I'm not 100% sure whether my dislike is just about densely populated cities or London itself - perhaps I'd feel the same about Manchester, Birmingham or Glasgow for that matter.

So Scotland's oil is Less affected by London dominance...? What planet are you on??? Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the oil pay for London's Thames flood barriers? or Underground systems? or the Channel tunnel?
In the mean time Scotland's got to beg and scrape money for a new Forth bridge or a rail link to Glasgow airport?
United we may as a collection of countries but not in equality such as financial or business. I think the London vampire has sucked enough blood from Scotland and our people have to stake this beastie.