Posted on December - 07 - 2010
Liverpool had fastest-growing economy outside London in 2008
Waterfront 300
LIVERPOOL had the fastest growing economy in the UK outside London in 2008, new government data have shown.
The city enjoyed a successful year as the European Capital of Culture and the figures have shown how the cultural celebrations, and the completion of massive regeneration projects including Liverpool One and the Echo Arena, boosted the economy.
The key figure of gross value added (GVA) per head – which measures the economic output of each person – increased by nearly £1,000 to £19,647 in Liverpool. This is compared with a North West average of £17,604 and a UK average of £21,103.
Liverpool’s percentage increase, of 4.9%, placed the city only behind the London area which covers the City of London and Westminster out of 133 UK areas.
The huge improvement helped pull the Merseyside figure up by 3.3%, as it showed the fourth-fastest growth out of 37 sub-regions. The county’s figure was also boosted by a strong performance from Knowsley and St Helens.
Lorraine Rogers, chief executive of The Mersey Partnership, said: “These figures are encouraging and illustrate the improvement in our economic performance in 2008 compared to 2007.
“2008 was a year of significant investment in regeneration and in the visitor economy.
“Liverpool city region is making good progress in closing the economic gap with the rest of the country.
“But what today’s 2008 figures cannot show is the need to rebalance this economy following cuts in public spending. This must be our top priority if we are to continue growing the city region’s economy to create wealth and jobs.”
However the historic structural weakness in Merseyside’s economy means that it remains rooted near the bottom of the UK league table.
It has the fifth-lowest GVA per head in the UK for the fourth-successive year but has increased the gap from the bottom four sub-regions of West Wales, Cornwall, Tees Valley and Lincolnshire.
But despite Merseyside’s strong performance, its GVA of £14,698 – an increase of £472 in 2008 – it remains £728 behind the next-lowest sub-region, Highlands and Islands.
Cheshire has risen to fifth, having overtaken Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, with a GVA per head of £22,139.
At the local level, Wirral has moved up one place but still has the UK’s third-lowest GVA figure, while Sefton is fourth-lowest. Both suffer from the effects of people commuting, mostly into Liverpool, to work. The bottom two places are filled by Anglesey and Gwent Valleys.
The effects of the recession are starkly illustrated in the regional GVA data for 2009 which was also released today by the Office for National Statistics. All nine English regions and the four UK countries saw falls in their GVA figures.
However the North West had the smallest fall per head, of 1.9%, with the South East and East of England worst affected with falls of 3.5% and 4.0% respectively.
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