When he retires shortly after 49 years in local government, Mike Dawson, chief executive of Tewkesbury District Council, can be proud of the legacy he is leaving behind.
Not something generally appreciated is that Tewkesbury is now one of the fastest growing areas in the country.
Tewkesbury is becoming a powerhouse in its own right with a huge growth in businesses-large and small-plus the development of a new Garden Town over the next 30 years.
Mike is a Lancastrian by birth, and in my view, has been one of the key drivers in sustaining Gloucestershire’s economic growth. A pragmatic man, he is not afraid to make his strong views known.
“It has been a real honour to be chief executive at Tewkesbury”, he says as Mike prepares to leave the job in June and talks to me about his 12 years at the helm.
IM: What do you see as your legacy in Tewkesbury?
MD: "Two related areas. One would be helping the council lift its ambitions in terms of its own performance and in terms of the growth and success of Tewkesbury borough. It is now one of the fastest growing areas in the country-in 2019, it was the fastest growing area or outside London.
“When I first started twelve years ago the population of Tewkesbury was 85,000 and it’s now 99,600-that’s a massive 15,000 increase in the population of the borough offering a 20% growth which is tremendous.
“You either go forward or backwards. I think growth for the success of an area of the businesses and the communities in that area, putting money into people's pockets, making them feel wealthy and in a good place all depends on a growing economy .That doesn't work without growing other things as well.
“In a growing economy, you probably need to have a growing population. You need houses for them, you need roads and infrastructure for those houses and the businesses that you're looking to attract. It comes as a package. A lot of people don't like to think of growth in that sense, because they quite often focus on why they don't want all those houses. But they are an important part for our young people to give them places to live in the future. The trick is getting the growth right and getting really good quality developments.”
IM: I don't think that most people realise Tewkesbury’s tremendous growth and its great businesses. Why do you think that is?
MD: “I don't know but maybe we ought to do more to communicate that and get our message across. I think there's something also about getting the message across about how important growth is. If you lose the growth then business doesn't want to invest in that area and government will not
want to invest in that area either. You have got make sure that you get the right businesses, the right infrastructure, the right schools and colleges.”
IM: In my view, people don't realise what a powerhouse Tewksbury is in terms of business.
MD: "We have a long history of really advanced technical manufacturing.
“We have a workforce that goes back generations in terms of an excellent engineering.
We do our best to support and grow businesses and I know our partners, GFirstLEP, do an awful lot to support businesses and we are forever getting enquiries about people who want to move into the borough to do business in in Tewkesbury.
“In fact over the years , the provision of enough land to develop businesses in Tewkesbury borough has been a problem that we are working to address.
“Some of our businesses are absolutely world class -companies like Messier Dowty and MOOG.
In terms of the numbers of business it is about 4600. I think we've got about 37 different sort of business centres.
“We are well connected in so many ways and well connected digitally. We are well connected by road and rail, and it's a great place to be for people who work and and run those businesses. We have some of the most beautiful landscapes in the country and we've got historic towns.
IM: What is the progress on the Tewkesbury Garden Town project?
MD: ”It’s an absolutely massive project. We are still at concept stage and there's still a lot of work to do in terms of the detailed planning but it’s a 30 year project. We got the Tewkesbury Garden Town status in 2018 and we've been working on it since then.
“We are looking to put in the bridge over the railway to facilitate the development of what will be effectively phase one of the garden town and so work is continuing to deliver now we have successfully received £8.1 million in funding from the government for that bridge. We are working to try and deliver the other infrastructure together with the County Council-a really close partnership there to try and get a new alignment.
“We are pushing to get the best possible alignment of the new road (the A46) and for it to join the M5 lower down, but there's a lot of discussion over that with Highways England and government .A scheme like that is going to be upwards of £400 million with the road scheme. The idea is to link up the A46 right through the Midlands to Immingham Docks.”
IM: How does he see Michael Gove’s Levelling Up agenda for local authorities affecting Gloucestershire?
MD: “Gloucestershire is a very special county-it’s got massive growth and receives very significant support from government than many counties. It really does punch above its weight. For me, agreeing an approach in Gloucestershire to the government’s Levelling Up agenda is going to be the art of the possible and that might be something that develops over time.
“I do understand the issue around elected mayors-it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. So, I think there is no point in just having endless arguments about something that you are not going to win. We need to work pragmatically as one county to get the best deal out of government for the devolution of power and money so we can support the future success of our businesses and communities, and who knows, at some point we might be able to come back for another bite of the cherry”
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