Relocation special: Stuck in the middle

Unlike the North, with its dark, satanic mills, or Merseyside, with its bubble-permed scallies, or the sheep-tastic greyness of Wales, the Midlands has an image problem of an altogether different nature.

This problem is that it doesn’t really have an image at all. By definition, it’s the bit in the middle, sprawling amorphously between London and the North; a bit to drive through on your way to somewhere else. Even the one thing that Birmingham used to be best known for was a road, or rather lots of roads – Spaghetti Junction.
But the lack of a strong national or international ‘brand’ is also a positive in that there are fewer misconceptions about the region to be overcome and less distraction from its core strengths. Indeed, it is the very ‘middleness’ of the Midlands that makes it such an attractive location for business. Split between Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire in the West Midlands, and Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northampton-shire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland in the East Midlands, the region is at the geographic heart of the UK.
‘The Midlands does exactly what it says on the tin,’ propounds Douglas Clark, a director at location consultancy Tenon Techlocate. ‘Being in the middle of the country offers excellent connections north, south, east and west; its location is definitely one of its major strengths.’

Transport and logistics businesses have long regarded the Midlands as an ideal base from which to reach customers all over the UK, as Frank McKay, chief executive of Travis Perkins, testifies: ‘Northamptonshire’s central location is ideal for the headquarters of a national distribution organisation, with easy access to major roadways, airports and the north-south rail link.’

And that’s not just true of Northampton; geographic good fortune means that with the possible exception of Lincolnshire, virtually every part of the Midlands can boast transport connections unmatched anywhere else in the UK. By road, for example, more than 75 per cent of the UK’s population is within a half-day truck drive of the
West Midlands. It’s a strength that the regional authorities are accustomed to capitalising on. The map of the Midlands is speckled with first-rate distribution and business parks in close proximity to the grid of motorways that crisscross
the landscape.

The heart of the matter
In 2004, parcel distributor TNT Express Services chose Network Park in Birmingham for the location of its new £8.2 million facility, the largest in the company’s 50-strong national network of depots. Employing 300 people, the depot represents the largest ever investment in a single site by the company. Depot general manager Grant Cochrane says, ‘We found the new site with the assistance of Locate in Birmingham and it is a fantastic facility, with much greater space and easier access to the road network.’

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