Sir Howard Bernstein has called on Manchester property leaders to continue his legacy of attracting international investment to the city.
Speaking at the Manchester MIPIM launch at KPMG’s offices in One St Peter’s Square last night, he said: “Obviously I spent a very long time working with a whole group of colleagues across the public and the business sectors actually creating a platform about about how Manchester should be outward facing, how Manchester should actually be penetrating international markets – all of which are absolutely essential to underpin our future growth ambitions.”
Bernstein will be attending his last MIPIM Cannes as Manchester City Council chief executive next March. He announced yesterday morning that he planned to resign in spring 2017, kicking off the process for finding a replacement for the role he has held since 1998.
He said the result of the EU Referendum result made it “even more important” for Manchester to be “a confident city, a confident partnership, facing up to those challenges in the future”.
He also said he wanted to see the Northern Powerhouse agenda continued.
“It is also about how we are being intellectual thought leaders about the role of cities in an increasingly global market – the sorts of policies like the Northern Powerhouse which we have got to develop and I think that has become a very distinctive part of what the Manchester partnership is about,” he added.
MIPIM 2017, he said, will be an opportunity to show the world how Manchester will remain, through its partnership approach, “probably the most distinctive offer to be found anywhere in the UK”.
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