Beyond the High Street: Wakefield Analysis

Transcription

1 Beyond the High Street: Wakefield Analysis by Ed Clarke, Paul Swinney & Dmitry Sivaev, October 2013 Figure 1: Wakefield Definition of areas Wakefield Inner Wakefield Outer Pontefract This work contains statistical data from ONS which is Crown Copyright. The use of the ONS statistical data in this work does not imply the endorsement of the ONS in relation to the interpretation or analysis of the statistical data. This work uses research datasets which may not exactly reproduce National Statistics aggregates. 1

2 Summary Wakefield s economy, defined as the Wakefield local authority area, has seen significant private sector jobs growth since Over this period, the city has hollowed out - with the share of private sector jobs shifting from the centre to elsewhere in the local authority area - as growth was driven by large businesses alongside motorway sites rather than in the city centre. In keeping with the national picture, the pattern of private sector jobs growth can be split into two periods: between 1998 and 2008, a decade of strong growth; and 2008 and 2011, a period of economic recession and slow growth. This paper considers the patterns of spatial development across all parts of the Wakefield local authority area, and looks initially at three areas; the city centre, inner city and outer city (defined in Figure 1) where appropriate. 1 Wakefield experienced strong jobs growth, but the city has been hollowing out Between 1998 and 2011 private sector jobs in the Wakefield local authority area grew by 6 per cent. But there was divergence in the performance of the different areas of Wakefield s economy. Most of this growth was in the inner (12 per cent) and outer (4 per cent) city areas. Meanwhile the city centre lost private sector jobs, seeing a fall of 2 per cent. As Figure 2 shows, areas around the M1 and M62 motorways were the big generators of jobs between 1998 and 2008, the decade before the downturn. Private sector jobs growth in the areas containing the Outwood Junction 41 (M1), Langthwaite and Dale Lane business parks (A1) and industrial parks (M62) in particular showed the success of these parks during this period. In contrast the city centre s private sector jobs growth stagnated there was virtually no change in the number of private sector jobs in the city centre over the period. This stagnating performance was in stark contrast to growing inner (+28 per cent) and, to a lesser extent, outer (+10 per cent) areas. The lagging performance of Wakefield s city centre is reflected in the other Five Towns of the Wakefield Primary Urban Area (PUA). Only (including Green Lane Business Park) saw an increase in private sector jobs, with the extra 331 jobs representing an increase of 18 per cent. saw the largest absolute fall in jobs between 1998 and 2008 (-1,337, -21per cent). But lost over half of its jobs over this period (1,294, 53 per cent), representing the largest absolute fall. lost only 53 jobs (1per cent of its jobs) whilst Pontefract lost 20 per cent of its jobs (590). Instead it was the areas between the Five Towns that performed well, with sites close to the M62 seeing strong private sector jobs growth. Figure 2: Private sector jobs growth in Wakefield, Private sector jobs change, ,701-6,000 1,001-2, , , Pontefract Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database, contains Ordnance Survey data Crown copyright and database right See the appendix for full definitions 2

3 Business movements between 1998 and 2008 also show that Wakefield city centre s economy underperformed during this period of growth compared with the rest of the district, matching the stagnation of employment change over the decade. Wakefield was a popular choice for the location of businesses from elsewhere in the UK - almost 200 businesses located in Wakefield from outside of the local authority area between 1998 and But of these 200 businesses, 135 located in outer Wakefield. In contrast, less than one in 20 chose to locate in the city centre. This is likely to be a reflection of businesses choosing to come to Wakefield to exploit its motorway links. Wakefield struggled in the recession, especially outside of the centre. While the decade to 2008 saw jobs growth driven by outer city sites, the period since has seen a reverse of this trend private sector jobs growth shows the inner city has been hardest hit over the downturn. Figure 3 shows that many of the areas that witnessed private sector jobs growth in the preceding decade suffered falls between 2008 and However, some of the hardest hit areas were in the outer city, Outwood (including the Wakefield 41 industrial estate), Moorthorpe (Including Langthwaite and Dale Lane business parks) and (including the industrial estates). There were however pockets of growth, these include the areas containing Crigglestone (Calder Park), Green Lane Industrial Park,. While continued to grow over the period (adding 10.2 per cent of its jobs) four of the other Five Towns all lost jobs. For and this was marginal (both -4 per cent in jobs). Pontefract and both saw larger falls of 21 per cent and 18 per cent respectively. Figure 3: Private sector jobs growth in Wakefield, Private sector jobs change, , ,129 Pontefract Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database, contains Ordnance Survey data Crown copyright and database right 2011 Private sector jobs are located close to motorway links Between 1998 and 2011 private sector jobs in Wakefield grew by 6 per cent. Most of this growth was in the inner (12 per cent) and outer (4 per cent) city areas rather than in the city centre which saw a fall of -2 per cent. Between 1998 and 2008 the structure of Wakefield s employment area changed. Growth in the inner (28 per cent) and outer (10 per cent) areas coupled with stagnation in the city centre meant the city began to hollow out. As a result the city centre suffered a declining share of jobs. During the recession and slow growth period of 2008 and 2011 however, the city centre suffered less of a fall in jobs (-2 per cent) than the city as a whole (-7 per cent). It therefore recovered some of the share in jobs from the declining inner city. Figure 2 breaks down the share of jobs across the three areas of Wakefield by year for 1998, 2008 and

4 Figure 4: Distribution of private sector jobs in Wakefield, 1998, 2008 and 2011 City centre (%) Inner (%) Outer (%) Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database The shift in the distribution of private sector activity in the two time periods meant that by 2011, Wakefield city centre had a lower share of private sector jobs relative to the city as a whole than the UK average (8.4 per cent compared with 20 per cent). The number of jobs in the inner and outer city located along the M1 and M62 (Figure 4) is a sign of the attractiveness of motorway access for businesses choosing to locate in the Wakefield district. Figure 5: Private sector jobs in Wakefield, 2011 Private sector jobs, ,001-8,000 3,301-6,000 1,801-3,300 1,101-1, , Enterprise Zone Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database, contains Ordnance Survey data Crown copyright and database right 2011 Sector analysis Much of Wakefield s private sector jobs growth was in the inner and outer city, driven by three broad sectors: wholesale retail, knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) and transport and storage (constituting 73 per cent of the private sector jobs change in the city centre and 59 per cent of the change in the rest of the local authority area). Private sector jobs in both the transport and storage (6,273 jobs, +113 per cent) and knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) (8,692 jobs, +105 per cent) sectors more than doubled outside of the city centre in this time, from substantial bases. Whilst businesses in the wholesale and retail and transport and storage sectors tend to prefer out of town locations, KIBS jobs traditionally prefer city centre locations. During this period KIBS jobs rose by 47 per cent in the city centre but doubled in the rest of the local authority. Between 2008 and 2011, wholesale retail jobs dropped significantly by 16 per cent in the city centre and -11 per cent in the rest of the local authority area. In contrast to the preceding period, private sector KIBS jobs rose in the city centre (+18 per cent) but fell by -9 per cent in the rest of the local authority. During the same period, private sector jobs in transport and storage fell by 11 per cent (66 jobs) in the centre but by less than 1 per cent in the rest of the local authority. Wakefield is highly accessible to much of the country (M1 to Leeds and Southern cities including London, and the M62 to Manchester, Liverpool and Humberside). This connectivity makes Wakefield particularly attractive to the retail (e.g. Junction 32 Mall), manufacturing (e.g. Coca Cola) and distribution (e.g. UPS and Eddie Stobart) 4

5 sectors. However these sectors rely on secondary markets and have therefore suffered since Other areas of significant employment are Outwood (including the Wakefield 41 Industrial Estate), Moorthorpe (the Langthwaite and Dale Lane Industrial parks) and Pontefract. Figure 6: Office based Jobs as share of total jobs by area in Wakefield, 2011 Wakefield city centre, 51% City wide, 18% Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database Figure 7: Share of jobs by sector in Wakefield and its city centre, % Wakefield 60% Wakefield city centre 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% KIBS Retail & Restaurants Logistics Manufacturing Other Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database Traditionally office-based businesses have preferred city centre locations over motorway links. Office-based businesses make up just over 30 per cent of businesses in the city centre and 21 per cent in the local authority area as a whole. They also make up a larger proportion of jobs in the city centre (51 per cent, Figure 5) compared with the local authority area as a whole (18 per cent). This is partially due to the larger office-based businesses in Wakefield choosing to locate in the city centre (an average of 29.1 employees per office based business compared with 10.5 across the local authority area as a whole). Despite this, the city centre has just 23 per cent of the local authority area s total office jobs, with the outer city home to 44 per cent (2011) this is low compared to cities with a stronger city centre core such as Brighton (38 per cent) and Edinburgh (50 per cent). City centres tend to be the preferred location for KIBS jobs in cities nationally (an average share of 35 per cent). Wakefield s city centre share of KIBS jobs (27 per cent) is much larger than its share of jobs overall (8 per cent) but is both less than other UK city centres. This shows that the city centre appears to have a weaker pull on these types of business than the urban average. Despite this, KIBS jobs remain a key part of the jobs that are in the centre; -47 per cent of all jobs in the city centre are in KIBS businesses, compared with 15 per cent on a 5

6 local authority area-wide basis (Figure 6). And KIBS jobs in the city centre fared better between 2008 and 2011 (rising 24 per cent) than those based in the wider local authority area (falling 11 per cent). Figure 8 shows that the distribution of KIBS jobs is relatively dispersed in Wakefield with a concentration in the city centre but also, and close to the motorways including Crigglestone (Calder Park). Figure 8: Distribution of KIBS jobs, 2011 KIBS jobs, ,101-4, ,100 Pontefract Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database, contains Ordnance Survey data Crown copyright and database right 2011.*Blank area represents <10 Businesses and for data protection issues is therefore not shown. The logistics sector is an important part of the economy as a whole (7 per cent in 2011 compared with 1.4 per cent for England). Unsurprisingly these jobs make up less than one per cent of private sector jobs in the city centre the majority of these jobs are based close to the motorways. The logistics sector relies heavily on secondary markets and as such these businesses were hit particularly hard during the economic downturn with jobs falling by almost a fifth between 2008 and 2011 (-19 per cent). Figure 9 Distribution of logistics jobs, 2011 Logistics jobs, ,001-2,250 Pontefract 226-1, Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database, contains Ordnance Survey data Crown copyright and database right *Blank area represents <10 Businesses and for data protection issues is therefore not shown. 6

7 Figure 9 shows that logistics jobs in Wakefield are spatially concentrated in the areas between the Five Towns, closest to the motorways and Moorthorpe, close to the A1. The largest concentration however is near the M1 Junction 41 Outwood site. The map shows that the city centre has fewer than ten jobs in logistics. The geography of manufacturing jobs closely matches the motorways in the area (Figure 10). Many of these jobs are on industrial parks between and around the Five Towns. The distribution of manufacturing jobs shows that they are concentrated around Outwood (Junction 41 M1) and along the M62 including North and parts of. The city centre has very few manufacturing jobs, making up just 2 per cent of employment. Figure 10 Distribution of manufacturing jobs, 2011 Manufacturing jobs, ,001-1, ,000 Pontefract Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database, contains Ordnance Survey data Crown copyright and database right *Blank area represents <10 Businesses and for data protection issues is therefore not shown. Business size The growth in private sector jobs for the city as a whole between 1998 and 2008 was mostly driven by larger companies (62 per cent of employment growth was in companies of over 250 employees). In the city centre, private sector jobs in these larger businesses fell by 5 per cent. Indeed by 2008 only 3 per cent of jobs in the city centre were in businesses of over 250 employees whilst 21 per cent of private sector jobs in the rest of the Wakefield local authority area were in these larger businesses. Figure 11: Average business size (by number of employees) in selected cities and their centres, 2011 City City wide City centre Milton Keynes Brighton Swansea Leeds Newcastle Swindon Reading Wakefield Birmingham Source: ONS 2013, Business Structure Database 7

8 Business size change shows that in 2008, businesses that were located in the inner city were larger (13.1 employees) than the city centre (10.6, and outer city 9.7), however by 2011 this reversed (city centre 12.9, inner city 11.8, outer city 9.8). This might partly be explained by a fall of -12 per cent in city centre jobs in Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs). The difference between the centre and the rest of the local authority area is smaller than in most other cities, with the city centre home to smaller businesses than for example Milton Keynes, Reading, Newcastle and Leeds (Figure 11). This is despite the difference in office-based business size already shown. Conclusions Over the decade 1998 to 2008 Wakefield saw significant private sector jobs growth, rising 14 per cent. Since 2008, a period of national recession and slow growth, the district has suffered (7 per cent fall in private sector jobs). However both periods were marked by a divergence in performance of the city centre and the inner city economy. The city centre performed poorly between 1998 and 2008 (relative to the local authority as a whole), stagnating despite private sector jobs growth in the local authority area overall. Since the recession, the city centre has lost fewer of its jobs than the local authority area as a whole, due in part to a larger proportion of officebased and KIBS jobs and fewer manufacturing and logistics jobs. Despite this the city centre remains a relatively weak core with a smaller share of overall jobs compared with other city centres. The manufacturing and logistics sectors are a large part of the economy of Wakefield; this has shaped the geography of economic activity towards business parks and out of city centre locations. During the decade private sector jobs growth in these areas were key to the local authority area s rise in employment, with areas closer to the motorways witnessing the largest growth. These sectors have also been particularly hard hit by the recession, with significant job losses in areas that had previously witnessed growth. For the Council and its partners, it is important to support growth in businesses that benefit from locating in out of town sites. But it should be careful about incentivising office based businesses to locate there rather than the city centre. These locations can restrict access to jobs and have fewer spillover benefits than the city centre, such as driving city centre footfall. The Council should in turn continue to improve the city centre as a place to do business, by supporting more pro-business measures. These should include: Continuing to address challenges in the office market within Wakefield city centre. This includes addressing the undersupply of specific types of office space within the city centre and promoting the new grade A office space that is currently available while dealing with obsolete office accommodation through change of use or through its removal; Improving public and private transport and access to and from the city centre where required; and Ensuring that businesses that might look to locate in the city centre have access to the skilled workers they need. Alongside this, the Council should review the residential and leisure roles that the city centre also plays. As with increasing the number of workers in the city centre, improving these functions will also increase footfall with implications for the High Street. Finally, both the Council and the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) should implement policy in the context of considering Wakefield s economic role within the Leeds City Region. A main consideration should be the public transport links within the LEP area. Further improving these links would allow the businesses of Wakefield to recruit from a larger pool of workers and would make the job opportunities that exist across the LEP area more accessible to the residents of Wakefield. 8

9 Appendix Definition of city areas The has defined Wakefield city centre as the densest mixed use area in the city. As this does not match MSOA boundaries, it has defined as the area between March Way, Ings Road and the railway line. The inner city is defined as the following MSOAs: Wakefield 008, Wakefield 014, the part of Wakefield 017 not classed as the city centre, the part of Wakefield 019 not classed as the city centre, Wakefield 020, Wakefield 022, Wakefield 026, Wakefield 028, Wakefield 030, Wakefield 033, Wakefield 036 and Wakefield 037 All other MSOAs within Wakefield local authority are classed as Outer Wakefield. Source of Business data The uses data that has been extracted using individual business records from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Business Structure Database (BSD). The BSD is derived primarily from the Inter- Departmental Business Register (IDBR), which is a live register of data collected by HM Revenue and Customs via VAT and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records and is complimented with data from ONS business surveys. The BSD covers any business liable for VAT (turnover exceeds the VAT threshold) and/or has at least one member of staff registered for the PAYE tax collection. For this reason some of the data will not align with the broader Annual Business Inquiry because this is survey-based. The BSD allows for a finer grain of analysis, however we remove figures which could compromise the anonymity of the data. It also allows for longitudinal comparisons. Non-geographic postcodes Businesses were matched to our defined areas by their postcodes. In this process we excluded all nongeographic postcodes, such as PO Boxes, as the location they are given does not give an indication as to the location of the business. This means that in some instances the jobs growth figures that has presented in the past on private sector jobs growth between 1998 and 2008 in cities do not align to those presented from analysis on BSD data when non-geographic postcodes are excluded Enterprise House Upper Ground London SE1 9PQ is a registered charity (No ) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England (No )