Reviving Industrial Sites

Creating a Setting for Investment

 Improving the environment and attractiveness of industrial sites to appeal to investors is the notion at the core of the Interreg project  "Creating a Setting for Investment" (CSI), which has been developed by a joint English, Belgian and German partnership.  

Could improvements to the environment and the landscape  make a region more competitive and help revive economic activity ?  This question was first put to the test in Sheffield, an English city with a long industrial past.  Sheffield, as did Liège, went through a difficult time trying to revive what had been a booming economy thanks to the coal and steel industries.  The city's economy markedly improved in the 1990's, due in part to progress made in the general quality of life and landscaping. Sheffield's success was the impetus for the CSI project, set up under the autority of six partners in England, Germany and Belgium.  

The CSI partners quickly realised that little research had been done on the correlation between the physical appearance of a site and its economic attractiveness.  They questioned in particular whether the environmental and ecological qualities of a given site could significantly impact on investment.  The originality of this project lies mainly in its encompassing both university research and practical application. Large-scale upgrading projects are under way in different industrial wastelands in each of the three partner- regions.

Jean-Marie Halleux, Segefa researcher and lecturer in the Department of Economic Geography, reports that in Liège  "... three sites were selected : one in Seraing, one in Trooz and a third in Ans.  Landscaping is  nearing completion.  These projects will be a testing ground for the impact of environmental  improvement on economic revival. "Land abandoned for several months to the point of its becoming wasteland has  two negative effects" , Jean-Marie Halleux goes on. "The perception of the neighbourhood suffers in the eyes of both residents and visitors to the area. It is thus important to act quickly by increasing, for instance,  the amount of green space in areas  where improvements are in the planning stages. "   

The major partners in the CSI project will present their initial results at a conference which will be held this February 26th and 27th.  The conference will be followed by three seminars which will address the topics of environmental image, the development of concrete projects, and their long-term management. One of the issues to be addressed is that of the regeneration of an industrial park in decline.  Mohan de Silva, manager of First (the Wakefield District Development Agency), will lecture on this topic. "Lanscape upgrading, he says, has injected new life into a  deteriorating industrial park in Wakefield.  This is one of the key elements brought to the fore by the research : business parks get old. The English are already confronted with the problem as many of their parks go back to the 1950's. We, in Belgium, will have to become increasingly aware of the need to renovate these parks. The SPI+ is very conscious of this." A round table bringing together economic decision makers and the CSI partners will close this two-day conference emphasizing the influence of landscape upgrading on regional economic development. 

Sophie Liégeois  

* England will be represented by the City and the University of Sheffield; The German delegation is comprised of two organisations : the Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development, Building and Construction of the Federal State of North-Rhine Westphalia and a private company, MGG, both very active in the redevelopment of the Ruhr industrial region. Segefa et Lema, two laboratories that are part of the University of Liege, will also participate in the project, as will SPI+, the economic development agency of the province of Liège.