Steel city switch to hi-tech industrial footprint

There is a real confidence that the “steel city” is on the cusp of establishing itself as a global centre for hi-tech, advanced manufacturing over the next two decades.

“For us advanced manufacturing is a unique selling point,” said Ed Highfield, head of the council’s development arm Creative Sheffield.

“We will continue to be an economy that makes things – not in the high-volume way of the past, but in an increasingly specialised, research-based way.”

The focus of Sheffield’s industrial future can be found just outside the city centre in the Don Valley, where Rolls Royce are the latest global brand to set up a base in the growing advanced manufacturing park.

By 2035, the expectation is that the relatively small manufacturing park will have exploded in scale.

“We should be looking at the Ruhr in Germany and the sort of industrial footprint you see there,” Mr Highfield said. “That is the scale of this thing.”

It is a vision shared by veteran MP Clive Betts, who was previously leader of Sheffield City Council and has watched the city drag itself out of deep recession before.

“We are in a better position than we were 30 years ago, because we’ve got a mu more diverse economy,” he said. “We’ve got more people involved in services, advanced manufacturing, in hi-tech industries, in leisure, health and education – these are all sectors that have a great future.

“I think that ultimately, advanced manufacturing will be the way forward because you see how those firms that have a specialised niche such as Forgemasters have lived through the recessions and are now looking to an expansive future.”

It is not just the economy that will change. The city centre will grow, and investment will continue to be targeted at public spaces.

If the £60m tram-train trial scheduled for 2015 proves a success, such vehicles will surely be the standard mode of transport in Sheffield for the next generation.

A high-speed rail station may stand in the city centre by 2035, putting London just an hour away and Leeds and Birmingham significantly closer.