Celebrating our 2 great Solent cities. Each is acclaimed for different things. However, a rivalry mindset is limiting. Instead, openness and mutual championing of the other. Success of one over the other would be a lonely situation. Success would really happen if you're in similar company, we'd say.
We propose that this is facilitated by interconnectedness, through grand scale public transport infrastructure offering social mobility and opportunity within Solent as well to other parts of the UK.
TheSolentMetropolitan is apolitical. But in a year where the public is choosing local authority and national representatives, we'd say the public needs to ask: how ambitious are these representatives for the Solent region.
On one end there's the case for making the fundamentals work well but being unambitious. At the other end, there can be grand ambitions - to provide economic growth that can fund those fundamentals. But grand ambitions attract scrutiny and speculation as to whether they will ever be realised.
We have a long memory: Hampshire Light Rapid Transit, Portsmouth monorail, Welbourne train station, more frequent train services in the region and so on...
"In the current economic climate" is a phrase used to excuse or close down ambitions or to justify choices. But we'd say the "current ecomonic climate" is a constant. There is always going to be uncertainty; it's a risk not to do something as well as to do it.
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