COMMENT - Lynn Massey-Davis to be Published 29 February 2024
After feelings of jubilation that we had succeeded in driving away the threat of our area becoming a nuclear industrialised landscape had died down, it’s good discipline to consider why other people may hold a different view. I understand that Local councillor Claire Holmes voted against the proposal to withdraw from the process of forming a community partnership with NWS because she feared the negative effect on other similar investments in the area. It wasn’t just a brave thing to do, it’s a legitimate concern. One of the questions we have to answer going forward however, is 'what is the right kind of investment in the area?'
Certainly, what is clear that it isn’t about changing our landscape to an industrialised one offering the kind of jobs and existence that people who have lived here all their lives (and there are many) or the rest of us came here to escape, don’t want. We want work but not the kind of jobs which turn us into wage slaves and automatons.
Try as I might I simply can’t imagine the women and men in grey suits of the Inward Invest team approaching Hornsea residents with offers of industrialising their landscape for the possibility of £1m a year and a disputed number of “below A-Level standard jobs”, which they tried to four on us. I know this to be true, but why is it so? What is good enough for Hornsea is good enough for Withernsea.
Could it be that the model of the world they hold in their heads of Withernsea and South East Holderness is out of date, fed perhaps by the poverty narrative which has been well used in some quarters to characterise this place. That narrative is out of date and does us a disservice because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Well, I don’t think I’m delusional but over the last couple of years I have seen something quite different and quite exciting. Over the course of our campaign, it was the residents of South East Holderness who picked up the baton and led the charge of: “not in my back yard”. This is symptomatic of our change and it’s time for a re-evaluation. Contrary to how it may be painted, I don’t believe that South East Holderness needs to stay as it is, it needs to grow and prosper, but in the right way. By that I mean sustainably and with an increase of money circling around within area - someone running a small business may choose to keep their discretionary spend in the area if good quality products are made locally - buying chocolates from a local chocolatier rather than Hotel Chocolat - an ashes ring from a local silversmith rather than a mass produced item from elsewhere -a website designed locally rather than remotely…. Imagine what that will do to how attractive this area is to people wanting to build their life here.
Since the pandemic the area has become attractive to many people looking for a better life. Many of them have an entrepreneurial spirit. We have chocolatiers, professional preserve makers, young textile makers, silversmiths, web designers and our professional looking campaign materials were produced by a graphic artist who has moved into the area with a portfolio as long as your arm.
These businesses are never going to employ thousands but what they need to do is provide an income which will be spent in the area and by the multiplier effect they will feed other jobs in the economy. I saw it best on my tour of Scotland in 2022. Whole communities employed in “cottage industries” the hubs of activity drew in tourism too.
What we don’t have currently are spaces and places to grow such businesses. I know at least one small craft business looking for a place to be. We have empty buildings in our town centres, in some farms either, with a little capital spend this could be a start.
The idea we have is for a business greenhouse. The greenhouse would be a little bit like the process of growing things from seed out to maturity. If we had a place that was a small business hub, which might be a big room with people having their own space within (think of TV’s The Repair Shop), fully supported in developing their own small business. Then businesses would be “planted out” into business unit or units where they could work with less support and then who knows what after that. The name in my head, though it might not be the right one is the South East Holderness Business Greenhouse.
We have a small working group beginning research using short surveys to see what people want in terms of business development in our area, because unless we put ideas to the council to shape our future, then I can see in Invest East Yorkshire ignoring us for ever or coming back with some other scheme for low skilled factory jobs (there’s no problems with people doing factory employment, but our locality it isn’t industrial).
If we put our ideas in the form of a position paper to the council with full research about the possibilities for small businesses in the area based on quality skills, cultural capital and based around being sustainable within our area, we might be able to change people’s minds about what South East Holderness is capable of. I want to demonstrate to those who think we’ve passed on an opportunity that there may be others to be had instead.
As for the imposition of a GDF scheme somewhere, I feel Claire may be right, but that is exactly why we needed to take South Holderness away from the process of evaluation. No partnership equals no preparatory work. This was factored in by South Holderness GDF Action. Why do those who have a different view seem to assume we have rejected the scheme out of ignorance than out of knowledge gained from NWS’s own resources, government papers, and our generous support from Nuclear Free Local Authorities and GOTEC at Theddlethorpe? My mind really does boggle at the assumptions some people have made.
By 2026 they are going to conduct deeper evaluations of 2 of the sites they are currently evaluating, and one of them will be selected and a GDF imposed, I believe because no site will freely vote for it (this was our argument too). By not inviting NWS in they won’t have the data available to say whether a site in South Holderness is suitable and any boreholes will be subject to planning permission, which we are now in a better position to fight (should they try to come back). Having demonstrated our resolve once we can do it again.
But I’d rather focus on the positive. If we can get 50 small businesses in 10 years, and protect hundreds of jobs in retail and leisure, I can rest happily. Let’s be positive, what an opportunity this fight has brought to us.
Comments