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The Challenge

The Context

South Hampshire is an area of tremendous potential but faces significant challenges. It has a wealth of natural and cultural assets and a robust, diverse economy. It is the most populous sub-region in the South East and the majority of its residents enjoy a good quality of life. There is also a history of effective partnership working between public sector bodies. With its one million people and 420,000 jobs, South Hampshire accounts for 10% of the South East's economic wealth.

However, as well as some of the least deprived areas in Britain, South Hampshire is also home to concentrations of serious deprivation. As a sub-region, compared to the South East average, South Hampshire has lower levels of skills, economic activity, incomes, business formation and entrepreneurialism. It has also seen a significant decline and restructuring of its traditional industries. At the same time, continual growth has outstripped the infrastructure, particularly transport systems and household growth has exceeded the supply of new housing, widening the affordability gap for South Hampshire residents.

These factors have contributed towards two decades of economic under-performance by this sub-region relative to its potential and compared to the South East. For example, in relation to the regional average:

  • productivity in South Hampshire is more than 9% below the average measured by gross value added (GVA)

  • average weekly earnings are 8.5% lower

  • the proportion of the workforce qualified to degree level is 5% below the South East average

  • new VAT registrations (42.7 per 10,000 population), a measure of business enterprise, are a third lower (63.9 for the rest of Hampshire, 59.2 for the South East)

The Evidence Base

PUSH commissioned DTZ Pieda Consulting to undertake research which would develop an understanding of the economic drivers for growth and the implications derived from these for the South Hampshire sub-region. This work then acted as an evidence base enabling PUSH to refine proposals submitted to SEERA as the sub-regional strategy for South Hampshire:

Economic Drivers and Growth Report PDF 107Kb

Economic Drivers and Growth Appendices PDF 70Kb

South Hampshire Economic Drivers and Growth Report PDF 247Kb

South Hampshire Economic Drivers and Growth Appendices PDF 70Kb

PUSH is seeking to refresh the evidence base, concerning the economic drivers for the sub-region, in light of the effects of the recession.

The Recession

The current economic downturn makes it even more imperative that the economy of the sub region is strengthened so as to match the rest of the South East by 2026. Our economic goals remain inextricably linked and can only be reached by achieving our regeneration goals, particularly by raising levels of economic activity and the skills of the residents, both those who are employed and those currently outside the jobs market. The current downturn in employment provides additional challenges both to retaining those newly unemployed people within the sub region and increases the competition for the jobs available in the market place, providing additional barriers to employment for people living the most deprived communities. Over the period of the PUSH Business Plan, PUSH must prepare itself for the economic upturn in order to maximise the opportunities to the sub regional economy in the long term.

The Opportunities

For all these signs of under-performance, many of which can be traced to the decline in traditional manufacturing industries, our research underlines the potential in South Hampshire. Areas of strength, such as business services, advanced manufacturing and high value research and development activity are already pointing the way for growth. Our strategy is therefore to raise the sub-region’s economic performance at least to match the South East average, particularly by growing knowledge-based and high value-added areas of the economy and equipping the workforce with the skills needed to succeed in those areas.

This will be updated following the evidence research expected to be completed in December 2009.