Failing to plan is planning to fail the city’s future - Liz McAreavey

If you’d invested just £1000 with world-famous financial guru Warren Buffett at the start of his legendary career 55 years ago, your account balance today would be in the region of £25 million.
Liz McAreaveyLiz McAreavey
Liz McAreavey

That’s quite a return. And he’s done it by taking a patient, painstaking, planned approach to what he does, rather than looking for quick returns. In his own words “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

In other words, taking a long-term view brings long-lasting rewards.

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I think he provides an appropriate reminder as we continue to work towards achieving the aims of the City Vision 2050 for Edinburgh - to be Welcoming, Thriving, Fair and Pioneering - and as we see the latest policy initiative on planning and development for our city, CityPlan 2030, take form.

Much of the work in creating these forward-looking initiatives was carried out pre- coronavirus, but the pillars which support them remain front of mind with policymakers at both City and Scottish Government levels. And business supports them.

We all want to share in this positive vision. But the big question – particularly as we seek to recover from the devastation to lives and livelihoods caused by the virus - is how do we get there? Who’s producing the roadmap, who’s being asked to navigate, and who is going to drive us there? A vision is one thing, planning how to make it work is another.

Yet when you look in detail at the strategies that are being produced to bring increased prosperity, opportunity and health to our people you’ll find one word that is seldom mentioned – business. That’s something I find surprising, a little worrying, and want to play our part in changing.

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But stop and consider just how vital businesses are to all of us. It’s our employment in businesses that provides us with opportunity and income to improve our quality of life; its business competition that helps drive innovation and invention; and of course it is business that provides much of the training and up-skilling to create the talented workforce we have in Edinburgh that also attracts inward investment and better jobs.

The Edinburgh Business Resilience Group was recently convened by the Chamber under the excellent chairmanship of Ian Marchant, and it has attracted stellar leaders from business and academia. As Scotland’s capital and economic powerhouse, it is vital that Edinburgh’s business acumen is put to work for the benefit of all its citizens, in support of the long-term objectives that all have agreed upon.

We want to be collegiate. No matter the perceptions, it would be too easy to simply point the finger at policy-makers and complain that business is not being listened to. Instead we have chosen to do something about it, to bring expertise together around strategic pillars and to highlight what business can contribute – and what business needs in terms of policy environments to help support growth, scale-ability and internationalisation. Business can and

will get on and innovate, create value and jobs and contribute to the economy and our communities.

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Right now we need clear thinking from our political leaders on the short and long term plans, the ‘roadmap’ to recovery, prosperity and more importantly resilience. We need a plan that we can all coalesce around, that helps deliver the shared values of Inclusion, Fair Work and Net Zero Carbon.

Working together is the only way to ensure progress. Without the input into policy making from business, our primary movers, we can meander off into the world of new concepts that bear no relation to reality. This can take years to unpick.

Creating a brighter future is a long-term aspiration but the planning to make it must start now. As America’s great leader, President Abraham Lincoln put it: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe.”