Lancashire County Cricket Club commissioned us to carry out an economic impact assessment of a proposed new hotel with 150 bedrooms, along with some ancillary facilities. The assessment considered the potential employment impacts associated with the new hotel, both directly and in terms of the support to the Club’s conference business, which would be expanded through the provision of larger conference facilities.
The study was part of a wider piece of work we carried out for Lancashire County Cricket Club relating to the overall redevelopment of Old Trafford, including advice in relation to issues such as funding.
Our analysis quantified the expected number of jobs that will be created on-site, through the operation of the hotel (and coffee shop) and subsequent growth in conference business, and off-site due to increased visitor/delegate expenditure within the wider sub-region.
In carrying out the economic impact assessment a range of sources were used, including the Cricket Club’s own figures and documentation and Visit Manchester’s ‘Conference Value & Volume Study’, which sets out an analysis of the economic impact of business and conference events in Greater Manchester, including the contribution made to the wider destination from off-site spend by delegates. Similar approaches to assessing leakage, deadweight, multipliers and displacement to those used in the Oldham commission were adopted, with differences reflecting local socio-economic conditions.
Our report showed that significant employment and Gross Value Added (GVA) benefits could be delivered to Manchester through the project, with many of the jobs being taken by local residents due to the lower skills requirements.
This assignment demonstrated our team’s ability to review business plans and project documentation to provide assessments of gross jobs and skills levels and to convert these to a GVA figure. We also used a range of external sources to inform our estimates. Furthermore, our team had to work in a multi-partner environment and therefore ensure that our work inputs to the overall scheme were complementary to those of other consultants with differing specialisms employed on the project.