On the 26th October 2017 we finally held the 'Northern Powerhouse' debate at the prestigous venue, Cutlers Hall located in the centre of Sheffield
Our joint local PEI committee, comprising IET, IMechE and ICE finally delivered a debate which had been conceived by the author back in November 2015 and worked on by a joint forcussed team over the past two years.
The concept was to create a debate on this widely discussed topic where we could embrace attendess into a debate and run the proceedings based on the BBC's Question Time programme.
The joint committee set about targetting a chairman and several panellists from varied & knowledgeable backgrounds who we felt could offer different views on a set of questions posed by members of the audience.
A list of potential panellists were developed, then short listed for individual committee members to contact and hopefully persuade them to accept the challenge.
Bearing in mind all three Institutions run there own independent event programmes throughout each year, this was a considerable additional task which needed continued attention amongst these other activities being covered.
The culmination of all this effort was to see Mr Kenneth Cooke the incoming Master Cutler as our debate chair, along with four panellists - Mr John Mothersole the current CEO of the Sheffield City Council; the Rt Honourable Richard Caborn - past Government Minister & Sheffield Central Labour MP currently a specialist adviser at the AMRC; Mr David Grey MBE, Chairman of the Sheffield City Trust and Executive Chairman of OSL Holdings and Julie Hurley from Atkins who's the Client Director for the North (TfN) & NPP member as our esteemed set of panellists.
Registrations were steered through the regional support team of the IMechE and we were finally rewarded with over 100 attendees on the night.
Seven formative questions were posed from select audience members to the chair and panellists, who each tackled them with a variety of views and enthusiastic answers.
Follow-up questions were invited by the chair from the audience offering both interesting and informative dialogue throughout the whole 90 minute debate.
The debate was deemed to be a huge success following many positive comments after the proceedings had finished, making it fully worthwhile for all the efforts given by key contributors, across the three Institutions.
Alan Chater CEng FIET
Immediate Past Charman of the SYLN.
