Monday 15th October 2012 - Nottingham

Nottingham before the shops open. I have to give a talk later this morning but wanted to see something of the city before I set my mind to work. Nottingham is huge – I drove round it trying to find my hotel in the drizzling dusk last night. Fortunately this morning the sun is shining and plenty of people are out and about – cleaning the city ready for the working week and delivering stuff to shops and restaurants. The parking wardens are out, as is a man on a cherry picker putting up Christmas decorations on the front of the City Hall. Nottingham is big. The city is big, the buildings are big, the streets are wide. (Nottingham was Celia Fiennes favourite city on her travels, she liked its modern scale). It was the same in Coventry, which I visited yesterday. There are, as with so many towns and cities lots of empty places. But the scale of buildings must make it difficult for start up businesses to work out what to do on this scale. You might be able to imagine setting up a small shop, perhaps renting an office to house you and a desk. But here there are thousands of square feet and it would be impossible to afford the rent, or buy the stock to fill these huge palaces. The old lace market areas seems to be best populated, or perhaps it’s just more upmarket and so the stores here are weathering the downturn better. The universities seem to be an important part of Nottingham’s economy. The University of Nottingham is on the west side of the city. Nottingham Trent University is in the city centre and there seems to be a lot of building going on. I can see the influences of the student economy around me – plenty of bars and clubs, lots of Tesco Express. Rents seem relatively high (£500-600 per month) but house prices are low. Here there are houses that cost less than £100,000. This is beyond the wildest dreams for many parts of the country, but low house prices usually mean few well paid jobs and over-supply. I am a week too early to take part in Game7 – a games festival that is trying to strengthen and build the skills needed for computer games. Boots the Chemist still have their headquarters here and have invested in the university as well as providing jobs. Once again I’m struck that a big local firm seems to have an influence on the city that goes beyond its direct spending. Perhaps it’s because they offer regular and reliable jobs that their spending trickles down into the area. Certainly I’ve seen no sign that money trickles down from rich people, but perhaps it’s different for companies. I saw the same thing in Bolton where Warburton’s seems to have a positive influence and create wider wealth.