Sunderland Renaissance: What is the plan?

Sunderland Renaissance was founded earlier this year as a campaign to promote the rejuvenation of the city of Sunderland. To do so, it has sought to facilitate pride in the city's history and heritage, as well as optimism in its future. Starting off by photographing given points around the area and emphasizing the theme of "Sunderland Renaissance", already the project has gained a growing following on social media. We stick true to our word that we are not political, SR has no interest nor purpose in participating in party politics and simply wants to promote a city that everyone can believe in it.

But still some of you might be questioning, what next? It's inevitable of course over time that our reach, awareness following will grow, but that is hardly enough on its own to generate real change in the city. Yes of course as is keep being emphasized on this blog, image, attitude and atmosphere counts. Whilst breaking the cycle of negativity which plagues this city's community is crucial, it must simultaneously be matched with real, tangible change that people can find optimism in, or in other words more than just "talking the talk". There are some exciting things happening around the city right now, but Sunderland Renaissance doesn't just want to stand on the sidelines as a cheerleader or commentator...

Therefore, the next phase of the plan is that Sunderland Renaissance aims to become an active participant and brand in Sunderland's regeneration, doing so through the private, than the public sector. As part of our campaign, we want to be able to work with businesses, investors and enterprises in the city to help better promote them and solidify their success in the area. This may sound daunting an it is a lot of ground to cover, but it ensures an exciting journey which can only accumulate in mutual and win-win prosperity. If you're wondering why we are choosing the "private" and not the "public", we have some thoughts to share:

• Non-Political and non-public (tax) funded: As stated in the first paragraph, we do this because we love Sunderland. We do not want this campaign to become entangled in the city's party politics and are not interested in following the daily bickering. What we are interested in is success, change and momentum, regardless of who is in charge. However from our experiences with the Sunderland Chinatown project, we gained an understanding that any project that requires funding from a public or governmental source becomes equally political. This stopped certain local individuals from endorsing our project, believing that it would stoke anger and competitiveness over sources of funding. From this, SR made a decision that it would not ask for a penny from the public purse. Government cuts make this all the more significant.

• Sunderland needs a stronger private sector: Sunderland's private sector has some success stories and it continues to improve, we have some things to be excited about such as Vaux. However, compared to other cities we continue to lag painfully behind, with many of the area's major business operations being based in the periphery (Nissan, Doxford, Rainton). A quick walk through the East of the City Centre the other day saw swathes and swathes of streets all but abandoned, peppered by empty units. Our city centre desperately needs private sector investment.

So based on, this, what do we plan to do?

• 1) Sunderland Renaissance will be incorporated into a limited company. This is the first step and will happen when the time is right. We will not simply become a campaign, but a private sector actor in order to acquire limited liability rights for potential operations. This may take time to progress, but the stage must be set for future operations

• 2) We will be designing and advocating the projects. This has already been trialed with the Sunderland Chinatown project. We know that many people respond to this with enthusiasm, but nevertheless hesitation. The problem with this project on its own was that it was vague and poses the question "how does one create a chinatown?"- it was too ideational and offered nothing tangible to progress from. Learning the lessons from this, we will be proposing new projects with very specific goals. Similarly as above notes, we won't be creating the impression "public money" is needed either to alleviate political rivalry. This leads to our next point

• 3) We will seek to find private sector partners for these projects. We will seek to work with local businesses and investors to establish these projects. This ideally will be done through the creation of joint ventures and thus the acquisition of private finance if necessary. This can ensure people's liabilities are protected, that taxpayers money is not gambled with and that the city can receive real, tangible investment.

With this outline. We are confident Sunderland Renaissance can establish a real vision for the city's future which not only promotes, but creates real change. Regardless of our own projects, we'd like to pledge our backing to all those who strive to make Sunderland a better place, for all those who choose to run a business in Sunderland and for the efforts of local authorities to reinvent the city's oprimism. Our message is one of good will to all the people of this area, we are not interested in political or funding battles.