"However the future growth of Inverness will be strongly concentrated to the east of the present city, along the A96 corridor."
So states the Executive Summary of a report prepared by Cogentsi (independent economic consultants commissioned by HIE) entitled:
"Inverness Campus (Beechwood) or Longman Road? What impact on the regional economy?"
The HIE web site reprts that, "The Highlands and Islands region stands to gain by £72m a year if Inverness College UHI moves to a new site at Beechwood, rather than redevelop its current site on the Longman Industrial Estate." For the full Summary the HIE web page is given below:
http://www.hie.co.uk/2009/Final%20exec%20summary%20080709.doc
In the report by cogentsi, are not the "impact on employability, earnings and productivity of students" and "a more balanced and larger population" a reflection of the same thing? The reasoning seems to be that the students will benefit the local economy by improving the "human capital" - but this is only true if they remain in the area after graduating. Similarly, the rationale regarding the "more balanced population" only holds if students remain in the area after graduating. Cogentsi themselves recognise that these are "skilled, mobile people".
ReplyDeleteThe assumption is that young people leave the area because of the small scale provision of Higher Education - is this in fact the case? What is the reputation of UHI as a place to study? Surely this has an effect on whether people choose to study there?
In addition, the decision of Lifescan to locate to Inverness over 10 years ago could not have been influenced by "business networks and clusters", since none existed at the time. The decision was more likely to have been influenced by any financial assistance that was received from HIE (see link below).
http://www.hie.co.uk/FOI-Reading-room-2008/Financial%20assistance%20to%20Lifescan%20Scotland%20Ltd%20since%201998.pdf