| Newcastle GROWING CONFIDENCE
Newcastle | GROWING CONFIDENCE
| Newcastle www.jmcgroup.com.au “We’ve expanded our sectors of work considerably, particularly into some new multi-residential projects in the CBD,” says Director Mario Dreosti. To facilitate this increased workload, Brown Falconer recently upgraded their premises by relocating to a newly renovated office building in the Adelaide city centre.
Newcastle | PLANNING FOR GROWTH Newcastle is a dynamic city of contrasts – it’s a port city bounded by pristine beaches and an active working harbour, it’s in transition between the old and the new, and it features an appealing mixture of the “raw and refined.” Over the city’s intriguing 200-year history, it has evolved from a hub of industrial activity into a cultural, gastronomical and creative epicentre known for its world-class surf, relaxed-pace and friendly locals. In 2011, Lonely Planet markedNewcastle as one the top 10 cities in the world, saying that it might be Australia’s most underrated city. They cited its ideal location, subtropical climate, dining, nightlife, and culture as just a few of the reasons to visit. In the years since, Newcastle has continued to develop, and is only growing more attractive as a destination for tourism and business alike. The shared community vision is for Newcastle to be a “smart, liveable and sustainable city,” and that vision is well on its way to becoming a reality. Newcastle is the second oldest and sev-
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Newcastle | enth largest city in Australia. It has the scale of a large city, and is at the centre of a large and growing region as the primary provider of business, health, personal, education and professional services. It is also home to an exciting creative culture, with a vibrant arts scene and an emerging food scene. As a result of all these advantages, Newcastle has developed a growing local, national and international reputation for being a prime destination of leisure, business, sporting and cultural events. To foster growth in all those sectors, Newcastle City Council recently prepared a draft of an Economic Development Strategy, which is currently on public exhibition.Greg Fenwick is the Economic Development Coordinator for the Council, and had a key role in putting that strategy together. “That was all about coming up with a structure that would highlight what Newcastle was about, how it had changed, and where the City of Newcastle Council can value add to economic growth,” Greg explains. As part of devising that strategy, the Council looked at Newcastle’s strengths and weaknesses when it came to population, infrastructure, key industries and employers, visitor economy, development progress, and
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Newcastle | more. “After looking at everything we saw as major issues, we came up with initiatives, and then discussed how we were going to get them recognised and funded,” Greg says. By the conclusion of that discussion and workshopping, the Council had settled on five major themes that together provide a road map for the economic development of Newcastle and its City Centre. Those major themes are: Newcastle as the Regional Capital; Facilitating Key Infrastructure; Business Growth and Employment Creation; Innovation and Creativity; and Developing the Visitor Economy. “Those five themes started as 12 themes and got whittled down,” Greg recalls. “We refined them until we could come up with visible strategies and actions that were measurable against those strategies.” “That’s what we really set out to do,” he adds. “We didn’t want a document that would sit on a shelf and be looked at once a year. We wanted an active document that could be reported on at least a quarterly basis, if not a more regular basis. Clarifying
| Newcastle TAKING ACTION those five themes helped us meet that goal.” The first theme of the Economic Development Strategy – Newcastle as the Regional Capital – recognises Newcastle as New South Wales’ largest regional city, and the capital of the Hunter Region. It notes that the city is a business, government, cultural, sports, health, logistics, educational and innovation centre for the region. The strategies and actions outlined in the draft seek to reinforce that role. Facilitating Key Infrastructure, secondly, calls for Council to work with businesses, investors, planners and government agencies to identify and assist with the development of key urban infrastructure to revitalise the city centre and Newcastle’s local precincts. These developments may include built facilities such as a convention centre, improved access such as road links and public transport timetables, and key utilities such as the roll out of the NBN andWi-Fi connectivity. This theme also reinforcestheCouncil’s role in providing and maintaining facilities vital
Newcastle | for community success such as the art gallery, museum and Civic Theatre. The third theme of the strategy is Business Growth and Employment Creation, and it recognises that new businesses are important for the revitalisation of Newcastle. As part of this focus, the Council will work with key businesses, organisations and networks to encourage growth in existing industries; eliminate obstacles to business growth; and ensure that small businesses are able to access business advice and other business development programs. The fourth theme is Innovation and Creativity. In identifying this theme, the Council noted that Newcastle already has a base in a wide range of creative industries, including performing arts, creative arts, media and communications, architecture and design and teaching in all these fields. According to the report, around 1.8 per cent of Newcastle employment is in the creative economy. In order to continue demonstrating this leadership, the Economic Development Strategy suggests Newcastle utilise home grown programs to develop new ventures, and to facilitate better access to government programs that support research, innovation and commercialisation. The fifth and final theme of the strategy is Developing the Visitor Economy. The report notes that tourism is a key development priority for Newcastle, and that the value of the visitor economy is estimated at $722 million. The report also says the visitor market is growing, and there is potential to expand the market even further. Prospective markets Newcastle is working on improving include interstate and international visitors; the short stay market from Sydney; business visitors; cruise ships; and events related travel. “Currently, the main source of visitors is people visiting friends and relatives,” Greg says. “So obviously the people who live here are very proud of their city and encourage people to come and visit them in their homes. Nearly 40 per cent of our visitation comes that way, which is higher than the state and national average.” “On top of that, we have the business tourism side of things,” he adds. “We have a fairly active conference market here, because our facilities work really well for up to 300 people and they’re not overly expensive.” According to the Economic Development Strategy, the key to building on that visitor economywill be further marketing the city as a visitor destination, as well as guiding Council’s direct investment in events.
| Newcastle THE REGIONAL CAPITAL “We’ve been very good at attracting major events over the last couple of years, particularly sports-oriented events,” Greg reports. “The AFC Asian Cup Semi-Final – which included the Australian Socceroos – ended up in Newcastle, for example, and that created Asia-wide attention in the football community.” To develop all five of the major themes – and their associated opportunities, strategies and actions – the Council consulted heavily with a number of stakeholders including community groups, business groups and major employers such as Hunter New England Health, the University of Newcastle, the Port of Newcastle and others. “So they can recognise themselves within the strategy, and they can work with us as partners to make it happen,” Greg says Greg himself grew up in Newcastle, but also spent time in Sydney and Wollongong before returning to the city – and getting involved in community economic development – 15 years ago. He says he was drawn
Newcastle | home due to Newcastle’s “community atmosphere.” “It’s a big city with a small town feel,” he says. “There’s a lot of good community spirit, which is built around a great environment with world-class beaches and rivers.” He says Newcastle also makes a great home for himself and others due to its proximity and access to other major metropolitan centres. The city is only a short trip south of Sydney, for example, and it has an airport that makes regular flights to Melbourne in only an hour and 15 minutes. “The city is well-connected,” Greg says. “You can get here and back relatively easily. If you need to work with people in Sydney, it’s not hard to do. If people from Sydney need to come to you, they can. It’s not seen as a hard trip.” Greg describes his current role as Economic Development Coordinator as being about“facilitating the actions that will get us to where we need to be.” In the last three to five years, he says that role has grown more vital – and those actions have grown more prevalent – as confidence has steadily returned to the city. “There’s now a much higher level of con-
| Newcastle fidence in the future of the city,” he explains. “Back then there was a lot of fence-sitting when it came to decision-making, and there wasn’t a recognised source of funds that would get Newcastle over the line.” In recent years, however, the New South Wales state government has made investing in Newcastle – and the revitalisation of Newcastle – a much higher priority. “The government has shown some confidence in this city, and put some money behind that confidence,” Greg reports. “That has continued to build on itself, and developments that have been stalled for nearly a decade are now happening.” As a result of that confidence, Greg says in five to 10 years’ time, Newcastle will “look like the city it has always had the opportunity to become.” “The CBD of the city will have moved closer to a modern transport interchange, we’ll have a light trail system in the planning stages, we’ll attract cruise ships on a regular basis and we’ll be recognised as the unchallenged regional capital of New SouthWales.”
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