The shortage of affordable housing and commercial space was named as another big hurdle.
Rents take up about 25% of local incomes here, which is quite a bit higher than in other global hubs-for example, in the San Francisco Bay Area it’s only around 15%.
The report’s authors said that changes to planning rules and better power grid connections would help, along with streamlining national government processes.
Susan Brown, Labour leader at Oxford City council, pointed out the council knows how urgent housing needs are: “Housing is critical to the economy growing, but also local people.
“That’s why we are building homes, we are now the biggest developer in Oxford, building shared ownership homes, affordable rents and council housing.”
Kakkad said the government really needs to speed things up: “Growth in every postcode needs acceleration of policies which have already been announced, like local government reorganisation, devolution, investment and not pausing and reviewing which takes time.”
The report ends by sharing ideas from other clusters like Austin in the US, Boston, Paris and Beijing on how they boosted productivity.
Anderson agreed it’s important to learn from these examples: “We are operating in a globally competitive market.
“Other clusters have got business, civil society and local government working together and there are lessons we can take to be as prosperous as they are.”
