Derby was one of the founding cities of the industrial revolution. Now that most cities are well aware of the risks of relying on a solely industrial base, and an industrial workforce, let’s take a look at what is being done and planned here to shape the city for the future.
Present day Derby still retains a strong industrial base. Engineering, manufacturing and industrial technology are still key parts of the economy. There are number of globally preeminent employers (although some have proved vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of the national and international economy) including power and propulsion manufacturers Rolls Royce, train manufacturers Alstom, construction equipment manufacturers JCB and Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK.
In recent years Derby has become an increasingly attractive location for warehousing and logistics developments, thanks to its strategic location close to the M1, A50 and East Midlands Airport. New developments here include St. Modwen Derby, a 67 acre development to the east of the centre where 1,000 people could work. Smartparc SEGRO Derby is a new 2m sq.ft. high tech. food manufacturing and distribution campus on a 155 acre site at Spondon where ultimately 5,000 jobs could be based.
Derby is a university city, although student numbers are very modest compared to other regional cities such as Nottingham and Sheffield. The University of Derby was established in 1992 and has around 14,000 full-time students. The city scores highly for student affordability in several student surveys. The main university campus locations are currently to the north west of the city centre. A new business school is now being built at Agard Street on the edge of the city centre. It will provide a facility for research, learning, teaching and business support. It is projected to be a base for 6,000 students by 2030 and could help to maintain city centre footfall.
There has been fairly modest development of PBSA here in recent years. An estimate from 2020-21 says that there are around 3,700 PBSA beds in the city, around 75% of which are managed by the University of Derby. The last Savills’ UK PBSA Spotlight report placed Derby in its third tier cities – broadly, places where PBSA schemes need to be well located and well-priced if they are to be viable.
