GUEST COLUMN:
Ian Mabbett
Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor for Research Culture
Swansea University
A successful city centre does more than attract shoppers, fill buildings or increase footfall. It can become an economic engine for innovation and talent, creating the places and experiences that turn visitors into enduring stakeholders.
That is particularly important for a university city such as Swansea. Every year, students arrive from across the UK and around the world. Some will become senior business leaders, researchers, investors and entrepreneurs. Their future connection with Swansea will not be shaped solely by the course they studied or the university facilities they used.
It will also be shaped by the city they experienced.
People develop a lasting attachment to places where they have built relationships, found opportunities and enjoyed spending time. Those connections can endure for decades, influencing where people invest, which partnerships they pursue and where they choose to bring businesses, research projects or international contacts.
Swansea already has evidence of that. Its relationships with Malaysia have been strengthened by university alumni who went on to become vice-chancellors and business leaders. Their connection is not only to the institution where they studied, but to the city and the wider area in which they lived.
Sport plays a key role too in raising the profile of the region and making it a place where people want to study and potentially settle. We saw this, for instance, in the 1980s when the university saw a spike in applications when Swansea City FC were in Division One, and again in 2011-12 when they were in the Premier League.
Set in this context, the redevelopment of Swansea city centre should be understood in much broader terms than simply an opportunity for property and retail. Investment in the Swansea Building Society Arena, public spaces, workplaces, leisure and culture creates a platform on which businesses can form, people can meet and talent can choose to remain.
City centres have changed significantly over the past 10 or 20 years. Their value now lies in the mixture of activity they can support: employment, culture, education, hospitality, events, entrepreneurship and city living.
For universities, that environment is part of the offer to students, researchers and staff. A university does not operate separately from the place around it. Its ability to attract people is strengthened when the surrounding city gives them reasons to stay, establish businesses and raise families.
The same applies to founders and growing companies. They need spaces where they can meet collaborators, investors and potential recruits. They also need an environment that helps them persuade talented people to relocate or remain in the area.
Physical development alone will not achieve that. The value comes from what is layered on top of it: networks, events, business support, cultural activity, sporting success and the connections between the university, the city and the companies based here.
Swansea’s regeneration is helping to create those foundations. The wider economic return will come from using them to deepen people’s connection with the city.
The city centre is where many of those first impressions and lasting relationships are formed. Its role is not simply to accommodate economic activity, but to help create the people who will carry Swansea’s interests and connections into the wider world.
