Issue 15 Ilex Chairman, Sir Roy McNulty: A new challenge
Sir Roy McNulty enjoys challenges. Ten years after ‘retiring’ from Shorts, he has returned to the Northern Ireland economic scene by becoming Chairman of Ilex, Derry’s urban regeneration company. He updated Peter Cheney on his new role and discussed how he is helping London prepare for the Olympics.
Most retirees look forward to a long period of rest and relaxation, especially so after a busy and high profile position. For Sir Roy McNulty, that period lasted four months. The former Chairman of Shorts left the company in 1998 but was soon brought on board at National Air Traffic Services to oversee its privatisation.
Since then, his experience has been in high demand, leading him to his current roles as Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Deputy Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) board. He was also the Authority’s Acting Chairman for 10 months. Now in the chairmanship of Ilex, he is hoping to help transform the fortunes of the Maiden City.
Though brought up in Raphoe, County Donegal, Sir Roy has seen little of Derry in the last 40 years and has been reacquainting himself with the place. He appreciates that it has not kept pace with the economic boom elsewhere on the island but sees a great willingness to turn the city around.
First impressions
Returning to Northern Ireland after 10 years, his first impressions have been “generally very positive”. Travelling the road to peace has, in itself, transformed the province: “When I left we hadn’t quite arrived at that point. I think the new political structures will make a big difference and offer the opportunity for great advances. There’s a lot more obvious development in and around Belfast. Physically, there are some places I hardly recognise.”
Considering the challenges for Derry, he remarks: “At the top level, Derry has lagged behind a lot of places on the Eastern seaboard of Ireland in terms of prosperity. On the level below that, you find a series of problems in educational attainment and skills, infrastructure, employment opportunities or lack thereof.”
However, in Sir Roy’s view, the city also holds immense potential and, given time, can recover lost ground through making good use of its setting. “It can close a lot of that prosperity gap over a period of time. Of course none of these things get fixed quickly but Derry has quite a lot of advantages, not least its location on a river,” he points out.
“It’s a setting which a lot of cities would desire but don’t have. It has a natural hinterland, both in the North and across the border in Donegal. There are a lot of opportunities and there’s clearly a wish from many people in the city to see things get better.”
Sir Roy says he is impressed by the work which Bill Kirk and the Ilex team are doing, and with the regeneration efforts of the North West Development Office and the City Council.
If anything needs to be done differently, it would be to bring the differing views on Derry’s future together as one voice. The city, as with any area in need of regeneration, “needs to get its act together better” and have a clearer vision shared by all concerned.
“Like any community, you need a coherent view of what we’re all trying to do, you need people pointing in much the same direction, you need people working in the same direction and you need a lot of energy and leadership to get you there,” Sir Roy explains. It will, again, take time to bring that about but, in the meantime the regeneration work carried out by Ilex along with others will continue to progress.
Experience
In terms of scale and workload, there are vast differences between each of his two other corporate roles. The CAA is the UK’s national regulator for aviation, responsible for matters as diverse as air safety and the economic regulation of the air traffic services and the airport sector. It employs 900 staff and a major review of its structure, scope and organisation is currently being conducted by the Department of Transport to ensure that CAA is well equipped for its future.
Tasked with making the 2012 Olympic Games happen, the ODA is in charge of a huge physical building programme with an absolutely fixed deadline. Value for money is of high importance, in the light of the large budget, which includes £2.2 billion of Lottery funding.
Sir Roy, however, finds that some of his experience in each of these areas is relevant to improving the prospects of Derry. The legacy of the 2012 Games, for example, will assist and accompany major regeneration in the five East London boroughs which cover the Olympic site: Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest.
“Although the Olympics is a one-off event, what you are then left with is the potential for a whole new community in and around that site. The Olympic Village, for example, is not just being built to house the athletes for six weeks but it will be a whole new community with 4,000 people living there,” he comments.
Within the ODA, he also finds himself “surrounded by experts” in urban regeneration such as Howard Bernstein – who was a key player in Manchester’s 2002 Commonwealth Games – and two former Chief Executives of national regeneration agency English Partnerships, David Taylor and David Higgins.
Despite its distance from the Games, Derry also has an opportunity to share in the 2012 Olympic experience. In purely economic terms, thousands of contracts will be let and an innovative website has been set up to let businesses across the UK register their interests.
He adds: “One of the intentions of the Olympics was that London 2012 would stimulate interest in sport and stimulate the development of new and improved sporting facilities across the UK. You can see a little bit of that happening in Derry, and certainly I would be delighted to see more. Who knows, maybe somebody from Derry will compete in London 2012 and that would be marvellous.”
Aviation, in general, is important for Derry and the surrounding areas as road access today is less than ideal. He comments that “road links [to the North West] still have a long way to go to reach a good standard, and aviation is more and more the way of linking communities not only in Europe but around the world.” Part of Ilex’s work includes helping put together a masterplan for the airport’s future development.
Attending to each role keeps Sir Roy “quite busy” even after a long business career, in which he was no stranger taking on major projects. Turning Shorts into a profitable company within Bombardier and helping to develop the Odyssey Arena, are two noteworthy examples. Asked what the greatest test was, he replies with a smile that there were “lots of challenges but I like challenges”.
agendaNi - March 2008