Wrexham MP Ian Lucas welcomes North Wales Growth Deal

The MP for Wrexham spoke at a conference at The Ramada Plaza, which brought together key policymakers and stakeholders to discuss the next steps for an effective implementation of The North Wales Gwoth Deal.

This comes following a commitment of £120m investment form the UK government, which has been matched by the Welsh Government.

Mr. Lucas believes there is untapped potential in Wrexham and Flintshire as he speaks of the importance of the North Wales Growth Deal.

“This region is quite an extra-ordinary region. During the 80’s we had the single biggest redundancy out of anywhere ever in the UK after the Shotton steelworks closed. We had North East Wales Coal fuel which no longer exists either.

“So, steel and coal, upon which our industrial revolution was built, was taken way.

“Yet, since that time, we, this region, and this is one of the best kept secrets, have been one of the fastest growing, most successful economies in the UK, under different governments.

“We need to tell people that far more than we do.”

Many different areas of discussion took place throughout the conference, including meeting the skill needs to support local growth, as well as key priorities for transport network developments in North Wales.

Mr. Lucas did not hesitate to admit that implementing the deal successfully will not be an easy task, but remained confident of the success it could bring.

“There are real, real challenges ahead and I am certainly not the only person to understate what they are, but the challenges that we face at the moment are challenges of success.

“We need a larger skilled workforce to work for our businesses, improvements on transport, a new superior digital network, all these things are really, really important.

“The fact is we’ve been really, really let down by the governments over a very long period of time on the investment front, on the transport front, and the infrastructure front for our region.”