{"text":[[{"start":9.68,"text":"As they enter Amazon’s £107mn distribution centre in eastern England, recruits walk past a sign comparing the cavernous warehouse with Peterborough’s ancient cathedral, just under three miles away."}],[{"start":22.4,"text":"The tech giant says it has designed its newly opened facility to last — like the 900-year-old Norman building. “We’re laying the groundwork for something that will grow and endure,” the signage says."}],[{"start":139.27,"text":"Cathedrals of online commerce such as the Peterborough Amazon centre — which opened for business this month — are changing the visible shape of the British economy, altering the geography of cities such as Peterborough as town-centre retail withers."}],[{"start":139.77,"text":"The warehousing boom is one of the fastest-growing sources of jobs in swaths of the economy north of London: in Peterborough alone the number of workers in the sector has soared sixfold over the past decade."}],[{"start":140.27,"text":"But ahead of a Budget that Andy Burnham’s government hopes will deliver on its slogan of “growth in every postcode”, in part through greater devolution to cities like Peterborough, local politicians are angling for a very different kind of growth."}],[{"start":140.77,"text":"“It is not where I see the future of this city,” says Shabina Qayyum, the Labour leader of Peterborough Council, of logistics jobs, which local politicians fear are vulnerable to automation. “We are deficient in high-wage, high-skill jobs.”"}],[{"start":141.27,"text":"Her plan is to diversify an economy that, like much of the country, has suffered from anaemic real income growth over the past decade — by seeking to found a medical school and tap into the stellar performance of Cambridge, the nearby tech and bioscience champion."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":141.77,"text":"But Peterborough continues to struggle with deprivation, poor adult skills and youth joblessness. Its urban landscape bears the physical scars of the shift to an online economy, with vast sheds proliferating on its outskirts even as the high street fades."}],[{"start":142.27,"text":"“Sometimes we measure economic success by what happens to a place, rather than what happens to the people who live there,” says Jonathan Jelley, chair of the Peterborough Council for Voluntary Service, a local charitable organisation. “The challenge is Peterborough needs to turn that economic growth to genuine shared prosperity.”"}],[{"start":135.52,"text":"The FT’s interactive map shows the sheer diversity of economic trends across the British economy during a decade in which the country’s overall growth performance has been stubbornly weak."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":145.56,"text":"“Growth in every postcode is politically attractive,” says Paul Swinney, chief economist at The Data City consultancy. “Practically speaking it’s hard.”"}],[{"start":155.32,"text":"Warehouses of sand"}],[{"start":156.64,"text":"Standing inside Amazon’s 690,000 sq ft warehouse, Tomislav Batinic, the site’s manager, surveys flotillas of electric forklift trucks and cranes on wheels shifting massive containers of shrink-wrapped Whiskas pet food and Andrex toilet rolls."}],[{"start":172.4,"text":"“As recently as January this was just an empty shell,” he says of the new facility, which is expanding output at breakneck speed. It had around 80 employees when it opened at the beginning of October, he says, as he watches trainees practise manoeuvring forklift trucks around obstacles."}],[{"start":188.24,"text":"The workforce in this single shed will expand to 1,400 next year, adding to the jobs growth in Peterborough’s fastest-expanding sector."}],[{"start":196.22,"text":"The local warehousing boom is in many ways an accident of geography, coming down to Peterborough’s central location and proximity to the A1, which roars past the west of the city."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":206.96,"text":"Companies ranging from supermarket chain Lidl to distribution company Lineage Logistics have opened capacity in the area in recent years as they capitalise on strong transport links and relatively affordable property values."}],[{"start":218.92,"text":"The financial package recruits get from Amazon is appealing, argues Batinic, standing near metal detectors used to check people do not leave the building with valuable merchandise squirrelled away. The drivers of the fleet of 200 electric vehicles that weave between multistorey-high stacks of shelves can start on £16.10 an hour, well above the national living wage."}],[{"start":240.52,"text":"Amazon says technological advances are raising demand for high-skilled workers in its facilities and that the robots on the site are boosting productivity rather than providing reasons to pare back its growing workforce."}],[{"start":252.12,"text":"But academics and local politicians fear many of the jobs are precarious and could be replaced by technology in coming years."}],[{"start":259.16,"text":"“If we rely just on logistics we are betting on a house of sand rather than future- proofing the economy,” says Andrew Pakes, the Labour MP for Peterborough."}],[{"start":268.76,"text":"He sees the city as a “test bed” for the prime minister’s drive to improve growth beyond dominant cities like London: “If we can get it right in Peterborough, we can get it right in many other places.”"}],[{"start":269.26,"text":"Where the jobs come from"}],[{"start":280.74,"text":"The kinds of jobs being created in Peterborough reflect national trends."}],[{"start":287.6,"text":"As the UK ages, healthcare has provided more new jobs than any other part of the economy over the past decade, according to an FT analysis of Office for National Statistics data, generating more than 650,000 posts since 2015."}],[{"start":304.48,"text":"In that time, transport and logistics have been one of Britain’s top seven job-creating sectors — employment in each of which has risen by more than 200,000."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":314.4,"text":"The logistics boom in Peterborough has made the industry the city’s fastest-growing source of jobs: the number of employees in warehousing has soared from 1,000 in 2015 to 6,000 in 2024."}],[{"start":327.68,"text":"Employment in the wider sector, which includes other parts of transport, is up 150 per cent. This partly reflects the rise of online retail, which is handled out of warehouses, although not all the sector’s employees are classified as in warehousing and logistics."}],[{"start":342.52,"text":"Meanwhile the much larger health sector has increased by half in the city over the same period, while retail employment has shrunk by nearly 30 per cent."}],[{"start":352.52,"text":"Peterborough has also grown rapidly overall — in terms of population it was Britain’s fifth-fastest expanding city for the 10 years to 2024, according to the Centre for Cities think-tank."}],[{"start":363.88,"text":"But improvements in living standards have been far more sluggish. Average weekly earnings are in the bottom half of the think tank’s 63-city ranking, far below London and Cambridge at the very top."}],[{"start":375.2,"text":"Qayyum wants to address local skills gaps via Peterborough’s new university — a branch of Anglia Ruskin University — which opened in 2022 and offers courses ranging from cyber security and biomedical sciences to nursing."}],[{"start":389.48,"text":"Another priority is rejuvenating the rundown city centre around Peterborough’s imposing town hall and the cathedral, which hosts the remains of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife."}],[{"start":400.16,"text":"The city centre was hit by the closure of a John Lewis department store in 2021, which damped its appeal to middle-class shoppers and left a shopping district looking down-at-heel compared with the splendour of the cathedral close."}],[{"start":413.56,"text":"Peterborough had already lost 1,000 jobs due to the 2019 collapse of Thomas Cook, the century-old travel agent that was based in the city."}],[{"start":422.6,"text":"The Labour councillor faces a daunting task. Standing near the entrance to the town hall, Qayyum lays out plans for the city centre that aim to give people “a sense of belonging”, detailing projects including a scheme to smooth pedestrian access from the station."}],[{"start":438.62,"text":"Her pitch is interrupted by shouts. Two police officers sprint past her and leap on a suspect whizzing past on a bicycle, bringing him crashing down to the ground before handcuffing him."}],[{"start":449.84,"text":"Qayyum, who maintains her GP practice one day a week, does not bat an eyelid, keeping her back turned on the chaotic scene as a crowd of onlookers gathers to watch the tussle. “We have been able to address issues like antisocial behaviour with expediency,” she says tersely."}],[{"start":467.12,"text":"The city, says Jelley of the Peterborough Council for Voluntary Service, is struggling with a history of “deeply entrenched” deprivation."}],[{"start":475.72,"text":"Life expectancies can vary by as many as 10 years between different parts of a city of just under a quarter of a million people, he says."}],[{"start":484.12,"text":"In terms of people who would like to work but cannot, Peterborough, whose ethnic mix is so diverse that 150 languages are spoken, is more deprived than four-fifths of local authority districts in England."}],[{"start":496.24,"text":"The rate of young people who are out of work, education or training is 5.4 per cent — well above wider Cambridgeshire’s 3.9 per cent."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":504.92,"text":"Chris Dalliston, the dean of the cathedral, senses that “things are on the move” in Peterborough, in part because politicians from rival parties are collaborating better. Nevertheless, “we are slightly living in the shadow of Cambridge”, he says."}],[{"start":517.48,"text":"“It still feels fragile.”"}],[{"start":517.98,"text":"The better-off neighbour"}],[{"start":520.36,"text":"When it comes to new economy firms in digital technologies and life sciences, Peterborough ranks far below its neighbour."}],[{"start":527.52,"text":"Cambridge boasts close to three times the number of frontier companies in sectors such as pharma and AI than Peterborough when adjustments are made for population, according to The Data City."}],[{"start":538.76,"text":"Britain has pockets of world-leading expertise in science and technology and is Europe’s biggest centre for the billion-dollar start-ups known as unicorns."}],[{"start":548.16,"text":"But successes have remained highly localised in a handful of winning cities — among them Cambridge, Oxford, London, Bristol and Manchester. Spreading the benefits more widely across surrounding regions is prodigiously difficult, experts warn."}],[{"start":563.76,"text":"“Frontier, high-skilled activities tend to cluster in very specific places,” says Swinney of The Data City. “The idea that you would be able to spread it across any geography doesn’t stack up.”"}],[{"start":575.6,"text":"The prime minister’s goal of “growth in every postcode” is ambiguous, academics argue. Is it focused on productivity growth or rising disposable incomes? Is the policy aimed at delivering higher output in every postcode, or simply improving access to existing prosperous areas?"}],[{"start":592.92,"text":"“It isn’t well defined,” Swinney says."}],[{"start":595.72,"text":"To some, like Paul Holt, managing director of Photocentric, a Peterborough-based manufacturer that works on enabling 3D printing in space, the city has been “a forgotten child” for decades."}],[{"start":607,"text":"“Peterborough is always in conflict with its more wealthy counterpart city,” he says of Cambridge and its legions of tech start-ups. “Success breeds success . . . It is very hard to break the cycle.”"}],[{"start":618.8,"text":"But to optimists like Ross Renton, principal of Anglia Ruskin University Peterborough, Labour’s devolution agenda provides a real opportunity for the city and the area beyond. The initiative is intended to create greater local powers over land use, transport and innovation."}],[{"start":634.08,"text":"That could help local authorities design strategies for skills to help them cater directly to local business sectors. In Peterborough’s case, that includes manufacturing, which remains critical to the area thanks to companies such as engine-maker Perkins, a division of US giant Caterpillar."}],[{"start":651.6,"text":"It could “really change the fortunes of a city like Peterborough”, Renton says."}],[{"start":654.16,"text":"The devolution drive is expected to be kick-started by Wednesday’s Budget, which is due to set out plans to allow areas run by mayors with enhanced powers to keep a share of the receipts from income tax and business rates."}],[{"start":667.228,"text":"Paul Bristow, the mayor of the combined authority of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, would like to leverage some of those resources to improve rail links between Peterborough and Cambridge."}],[{"start":677.946,"text":"As things stand, it takes less time to travel from Peterborough to London by train than it does to Cambridge, a journey of less than half the distance."}],[{"start":687.56,"text":"Bristow also envisages a boost to Peterborough from a major government project to create an “arc” that links up Cambridge and Oxford, boosting housing and local jobs."}],[{"start":699.12,"text":"Diane Coyle, professor of public policy at Cambridge, argues that if such infrastructure flaws can be overcome, the city could become a commuter zone feeding into Cambridge, which is bursting at the seams."}],[{"start":709.76,"text":"“It’s not about trickle-down, it’s thinking about linkages in the economy,” she says."}],[{"start":715.28,"text":"As mayor, Bristow says he is determined to use his new powers to create a “pipeline of opportunities” — ensuring that talented people want to stay in the city."}],[{"start":724.44,"text":"“There has to be more to Peterborough than just logistics.”"}],[{"start":727.7,"text":"Videos filmed by Charlie Bibby and edited by Daniel Garrahan. Employment deprivation map design and development by Ændra Rininsland, Chesca Taylor and Tomoya Suzuki"}],[{"start":743.24,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1793365744_7288.mp3"}