During 2017 Exeter City Futures commissioned an economic evaluation report from Vivid Economics in order to open the discussion about the high level economic benefits of the types of sustainable change promoted by Exeter City Futures. Many key stakeholders from public and private organisations across the City gave their time to support the generation of the evidence for this document, for which we are grateful. It is our hope that it helps individuals and organisations across the City begin to think about systemic change and the impact of investment in Cities.
The economic evaluation report presents a compelling case for investment in Infrastructure Systems within Exeter that supports Exeter City Futures’ goal to make the city Energy Independent and Congestion Free by 2025. The report sets out the benefits of the Exeter City Futures programme based on an independent review of the proposed interventions. The analysis, conducted and validated by Vivid Economics, builds on the comprehensive technical work to date which includes the Energy Independence Report (produced by City Science 2017).
The report concludes that innovation in the energy and transport sectors offers significant additional opportunity to improve the regions’ productivity and growth, to stimulate jobs promote and economic expansion. In total, innovation-driven improvements carried out between now and 2025 in these two sectors could create over £3 billion in net present value for the region. Such improvements represent a potential win-win for Greater Exeter – increasing per capita income, while improving health outcomes and environmental sustainability.
Taken in aggregate this report demonstrates that the Exeter City Futures’ programme, if successful, could create up to:
- £3.9bn of NPV benefits in the base-case (and £6.1bn of NPV benefits in the high case when considering maximum innovation and export benefits)
- The creation of up to 8,700 jobs by 2025 (excluding jobs related to the establishment of new innovative companies)
- £860m of annual GVA uplift from the measures introduced and their associated stimulus effects.