Apparently the South-West Regional Development Authority (SWRDA) is proposing to spend £300 million on a science park near
How much better would it be to give this money to engineers to start new companies?
You get people like South-West Ventures doling out investments of a couple of hundred thousand or so to entrepreneur-engineers - mere peanuts - and then this enormous sum being spent on a lot of buildings.
Down in
So why don't the SWRDA do that?
Well, came the answer, the SWRDA don't know who to invest in.
Clearly, it takes a brains, know-how and judgment to pick a good hi-tec business plan.
This is not what the SWRDA are capable of doing.
The SWRDA are probably good at getting builders to build buildings, and good at taking on a load of bureaucrats to run the buildings, but they haven't got the nous to spot hi-tec winners.
But the SWRDA isn't some independent body spending its own money. The SWRDA is spending our money, taxpayers' money, given to the SWRDA by the government.
So the government should either give this money to someone else, like South-West Ventures, who can invest it in productive hi-tec engineering start-ups, or should prevail upon the SWRDA to hire some guys who know how to invest productively in hi-tec.
The SWRDA may protest that they don't want to provide jobs for techies, they want to provide jobs for bureaucrats, but the SWRDA's paymaster, the government, should insist that, for the public good, they provide jobs for techies.
Jobs for bureaucrats are not what is wanted; pretty buildings are not needed; capital for entrepreneur-engineers is critically needed.
After all, it was these regional development guys - admittedly in
How productive were those investments?
They were totally crap.
TOMORROW: THE TEN BEST HI-TEC BATTLES
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Comments (2)
Start-ups do need buildings to operate in. For a company with no history it can be tough to convince a commercial landlord to grant a lease on flexible and affordable terms. I don't know enough about the SWRDA's plans to know if they make sense, but this kind of scheme can help. The risk to the public purse is minimal. If a tenant doesn't make it they still own the building and the exposure is a few months rent at worst. If the tenant does make it, the region has all the benefits of a healthy SME - it's hard to relocate once all your staff are established in an area. Amongst the clients I've worked with Flint stands out as an example of a company that started in a suite in a Coalville Enterprise Zone site, and moved on to become a business employing 70 plus locally. Giving the money directly to the companies would expose the SWRDA much more directly to the risks of the enterprise.
Posted by Peter van der Sluijs | July 15, 2008 9:50 AM
Posted on July 15, 2008 09:50
Yes, but why shouldn't SWRDA be exposed to the risk of the enterprise? Silicon Valley realtors take stock in a start-up tenant in lieu of rent. So they expose themselves to the risk of the enterprise.
My real point is that SWRDA's money is our money - tax payer's money - and if that's going to be put to help hi-tec entrepreneurs it would be better spent on the entrepreneurs than buildings.
Putting money into buildings rather than entrepreneurs is, in my humble view, putting the cart before the horse.
Posted by David Manners | July 15, 2008 10:49 AM
Posted on July 15, 2008 10:49