The Suffolk Treasure House

THE SUFFOLK SMALL BUSINESS PROJECT

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Introduction

The prospect of this scenario is quite exciting. In this scenario, the county retains its traditional rural character, as London does not dominate the county, but, in contrast, Suffolk does become fully integrated into the world economy. As this happens, the pulse of the business community in Suffolk changes. Although the pace of business increases dramatically, the business community are able to take full advantage of the collapse of time and space that the ICT Revolution has brought about - to deliver world class service offerings to their customers, it is able to take advantage of the 24 hour clock to offer service deliveries, and it has taken advantage of the expansion of the EU as a means to reduce the costs of doing business. By 2020, Suffolk has become a fashionable place in which to a small business.

Narrative

Despite the influx of people relocating from London, either as an escape from City Life or as a place to which they can retire, Suffolk has managed to retain the traditional rural character that it had for centuries. It is that rural character that attracts those locating in the county. In a perverse way, the county did well from the failure of the authorities to attract significant amounts of inward investment in the first decade of the twenty first century. The lack of an accelerator effect in the small business community forced it to look further afield for their markets, it forced it to embrace the global economy.

The policy of attracting creative professionals fleeing from an oppressive life-style in London and South East England to locate in Suffolk started to pay dividends towards the year 2010. By then, the county had firmly established a creative base, and had started to develop an international reputation as a creative powerhouse. In the early days, many of these small businesses remained commercially viable by sub-contracting to larger businesses, mainly in the London area. As the flight of talent from London continued into the new century, this market started to represent a significant financial transfer from the capital to Suffolk. It was from this financial transfer that the success of Suffolk was underwritten.

The establishment of the University of Suffolk had a positive effect upon the development of the county. The work of the staff of the new University in engaging the small business community in a positive way helped to develop the close links between the two which was to pave the way for the successful co-operation that led to the creation of the Science Park in 2013. Although seen originally as a teaching University, the courage of the University Board to abandon Undergraduate teaching in 2009 and to focus exclusively on research and Graduate Studies was crucial to the development of the reputation of the University as a world class institution. In return, accepting the need for the University to retain its status as a centre of excellence, the business community was more than generous in the funding of posts at the University. Freed from the hum-drum of undergraduate teaching, the University found that it could attract some of the best teachers of their day. However, it was the ability of the University to retain close contact with its roots that allowed the University to have a marked impact upon the local business community.

In many respects, the continued poor transport links within the county and the poor links to the rest of the UK acted in a way that stimulated the development of the small business sector. By making it hard to do business in the real world, the poor transport links facilitated the development of the capacity to do business in Suffolk through the virtual world. As the small business sector started to see cyberspace as their natural marketplace, the geographical focus of the community lifted to a global perspective. By 2008, it was quite common to meet in Suffolk small businesses with customers from at least three continents. This global focus was further enhanced with the expansion of Stansted Airport in 2012. Once open, the local small business community started to use Amsterdam as the global hub, via the connections from Stansted. Indeed, by 2015, it was quicker to hub from Suffolk to Amsterdam than to travel by train from Suffolk to London Heathrow or London Gatwick.

The further isolation of Suffolk from London geographically was reflected in a political change. At the turn of the century, Suffolk was relatively Eurosceptic in its stance. Suffolk voted against the EU Constitution in the 2006 referendum. However, the increasingly global perspective of the small business community and the relative detachment of Suffolk from London started to change this view. The rise of the Euro as an international reserve currency led Suffolk businesses increasingly to price in Euros, and to settle their accounts in Euros. By 2011, the situation had changed sufficiently for Suffolk to vote in favour of joining the Euro zone. Unfortunately, the rest of the country did not agree, and Sterling was retained, which detached even further the Suffolk business community from the rest of the UK, and particularly from London. A survey of Suffolk small business conducted by the Bank of England in 2015 found that 86.4% of B2B commercial transactions in the county were undertaken in Euros. It is hardly surprising to see why, in the Referendum of 2017, Suffolk voted overwhelmingly to become an independent political unit within the EU, much on the same basis that Malta had evolved into.

By 2020 it was difficult to deny the effects of climate change. They had become plainly visible through the rising level of the sea, the more extreme weather patterns, and the increase in rainfall experienced within the county. All of this served to make farming less viable at the opening of the new century. However, it also had the effect of releasing a large land bank for the business community to use. Part of this land bank was used for housing, but the development of housing initiatives was constantly plagued by labour shortages. Part of the land bank was used to develop modern commercial buildings on greenfield sites. This facilitated the roll out of broadband across the county, as it was much easier to create a new infrastructure than to modify an existing one. Finally, the land bank was also used to develop leisure facilities within Suffolk. However, Suffolk never really developed as a leisure destination, owing to the poor transport links to the rest of the country. The leisure market that did exist in Suffolk was mainly based upon catering for those resident who already lived there - particularly the Independent Elders who had chosen Suffolk as their retirement location.

Over the years, there was some change within the social composition of Suffolk. The inward migrators tended to be High Income Families and Independent Elders, and the University attracted Stylish Singles and Bohemians. However, none of these trends was sufficiently large to crowd out the Country Dwellers. Those who did feel the pressure were those located towards the bottom end of the social ladder. This pressure was expressed in the form of an acute housing shortage within the county. Inward migrators increased the demand for property, a buoyant small business sector - funded by a wealth transfer from London - fuelled the liquidity of the local property market, and an acute shortage of building workers held the supply of housing in check. All of this resulted in a dramatic increase in property values within the county.

House prices rose to the point where those on the lower rungs of the property ladder were priced out of the market. The authorities responded with one or two innovative schemes (the use of residential Porta-cabins in Ipswich, the creation of “Tent-Town” in Bury St Edmunds), but these failed to capture the imagination of the population in Suffolk, who wanted to live in traditionally built accommodation. In the early years of the century, this pressure resulted in a local political backlash against incomers. However, by 2010, it would appear that it had been generally accepted that the prosperity enjoyed by the county was dependent upon the efforts of the incomers, particularly those located within the Creative Class.

Over the period 2005-2020, the Suffolk small business community developed to the extent that it was one of the most prosperous in Europe. This income was translated into wealth through the local property market, which, in turn caused acute social problems. The homeless and overcrowded families seen in Suffolk in 2020 are the direct result of the success of the commercial sector over the past 15 years. They are a threat to the continued prosperity of the county, as they diminish the residential attractiveness that was the basis of that commercial success.

Milestones

If this scenario were to come to pass, what would the key milestones be? We feel that there are five key milestones that need to be looked for:

1. Large companies - that there continues to be a very small number of large companies located in Suffolk, and that they are poorly integrated into the local small business community.

2. University of Suffolk - this initiative succeeds in becoming a world centre of excellence that attracts high quality students and high quality teaching staff, and that the University fully integrates with the local small business community, who, in turn, give the University their full support in terms of time and money.

3. Net gain of talent - good employments prospects and a world class University manage to retain talent within the Suffolk economy and attracts talent from other regions in the UK and from other countries around the world.

4. Infrastructure - higher transport times within Suffolk and to areas outside of Suffolk are combined with good ICT roll-out in the Suffolk economy. This alters the vision of Suffolk businesses to become more global in their view by fully using the commercial possibilities to trade in cyberspace.

5. Social composition - Suffolk continues to be an attractive place for commuters to relocate and for seniors to retire to. However, whilst not crowding out the Country Dwellers, there are great stresses within the social composition of Suffolk that lessens its appeal as a destination in which to locate.

These are empirical propositions. We can measure the extent to which they are, or are not, actually happening. Evidence that suggests that they are happening may also suggest that elements of this scenario will be present in the future.

Of course, this is not to say that we would find this future desirable. If we did, then we could take steps to see that it comes to pass. If we find it undesirable, then we could take steps to ensure that it didn’t come to pass. The key point is that the future is in our hands. It is up to us to decide what we are to make of it.

This section was produced with assistance from Victoria Freestone on secondment from the European Futures Observatory.

THE EUROPEAN

FUTURES

OBSERVATORY