Discussions centred around how the South East can remain globally competitive while addressing local challenges, such as infrastructure pressures, water resilience, and housing and skills shortages, and attracting sustainable investment. 

Interactive sprint workshops later in the day invited delegates to co-design solutions around three themes: healthy homes and communities, clean energy and regional regeneration, and AI for growth.

AI at “Front and Centre” of Growth

As Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Kyle delivered a wide-ranging address with Tim Flagg, CEO of UKAI, for the conference ‘fireside chat’. In it, he highlighted the Government’s commitment to innovation as the key to overcoming the UK’s “growth emergency”. He insisted that the Government, along with investors and businesses, need a greater “sense of urgency, boldness, and creativity” in the wake of such “incredibly rapid” development in certain areas, such as artificial intelligence (AI).

Kyle outlined plans to connect investment in AI, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing with stronger regional ecosystems, noting that innovation and scale-up support must operate as a single, joined-up system.

He emphasised that the UK cannot avoid the global wave of AI-driven change – and indeed, he celebrated it – but must use the agency of government to shape how it unfolds. 

Technology can be a transformative tool for workforce skills, Kyle insisted. He emphasised AI’s transformative potential to democratise learning and close generational divides in digital capability, “If people aged 35 are using AI twice as much as those aged 55, the time it takes to close that gap is a two-hour training session.”

AI, he added, is a “foundational language” and is becoming a “learning tool and teacher” – a democratising agent, and a leveller for those previously held back by traditional education models.

He also announced £233 million in deregulation measures to ease the reporting burden on small businesses, saving firms up to 200 hours per year, with further reforms to follow.

Kyle emphasised that these measures will have a tangible impact on the UK’s most dynamic business communities. “That is 200 hours of work for every business”, he said – time he expects to be reinvested in “building teams, shaping culture, and strengthening customer relationships”. Funding, he claimed, is being redirected towards high-growth sectors, with AI “front and centre” of the strategy.

Investment in Innovation

Alongside deregulation, Kyle explained how the Government is increasing research and development (R&D) investment by 11 per cent, bringing the total commitment over the current Spending Review period to £86 billion. This 11 per cent increase in R&D spending will go hand in hand with new coordination between the Department for Business and Trade and Skills England, and a renewed focus on supporting high-growth sectors such as artificial intelligence.

A Joined-up Innovation Ecosystem

Kyle stressed the need for greater coherence across government, linking innovation policy directly with business scale-up support, “You can’t have a disjoint between where innovation is created and where it scales up. It needs to be much more fluid.”

This joined-up thinking is also being applied regionally. He cited new area-based investment powers for mayors, and he urged universities to play a more active role, as key enablers of growth.

As a graduate of the University of Sussex, where the event was held, he argued that “Universities should play a much more forward-facing leadership role”, highlighting their potential to forge public-private partnerships and spin out new commercial innovations.

Towards an Innovation-led Recovery

The emerging strategy signals a high-tempo push to combine legislative efficiency with technological acceleration, designed to re-energise productivity, boost regional competitiveness and secure Britain’s position as a leader in innovation. Kyle intimated this when he celebrated the South East’s local assets, which “see themselves in relation directly to London. They don’t look inwards” – celebrating the South East’s prized connected, integral partnerships: partnerships that withstand the parameters of metropolitan vs non-metropolitan.

The Secretary of State concluded by calling for stronger regional leadership, praising the emergence of new devolved authorities such as the forthcoming Sussex Mayoralty, and urging universities to play a more active role in local economic strategy: “Brighton and Hove is Brighton and Hove because of its universities. They must be at the heart of our regional leadership and growth story.”

The Get Britain Growing South East Conference was sponsored by HP and Southern Water. The conference was organised in partnership with Silverstone Communications.

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Without water, everything stops.” Southern Water Chief Executive, Lawrence Gosden set out his message for the future – urging vital action while expressing confidence that solutions can be found.

Gosden delivered his keynote address at the Get Britain Growing: South East conference – a day dedicated to exploring the region’s path to sustainable economic growth.

Held in partnership with Chamber UK, Curia and UKAI, the event examined how the South East can remain globally competitive while addressing pressing local challenges, including infrastructure demands, water resilience, housing shortages, skills gaps, and the need to attract long-term, sustainable investment.

Southern Water played a central role in discussions on greener growth, sustainability and regional infrastructure, highlighting the vital link between water resilience, economic growth, and community wellbeing. Gosden underscored how investment in modernising the South East’s water systems – from tackling leakage and improving wastewater management to supporting nature-based solutions – is essential for the region’s long-term prosperity.

The urgency of climate change

Gosden emphasised the escalating climate risks to water production and consumption. “If we do not start to change water infrastructure in this part of the country, in ten years’ time, during a drought, we will run out of water. In only ten years’ time – and without water, everything stops,” he said.

He proposed several solutions, citing the South East Strategic Reservoir Option in collaboration with Thames Water and the broader water transfer project to share water supplies between neighbouring water companies and across our own network to areas where it’s needed.

Getting ahead of climate change

Gosden urged the conference to “get ahead of climate change”, highlighting water recycling – a “tried and tested technology” that cleans water so effectively “you have to replace minerals” to make it taste like tap water. Warning that “if we don’t take action, we will start to run dry”, he advocated collaboration between local authorities and customers, and pragmatic infrastructure such as water butts – simple, but effective.

He argued for renewal, not reversal, of existing infrastructure: “Taking surface water out doesn’t mean we have to suddenly replace all of our existing infrastructure.” He explained that many simple structures already exist to keep surface water out of the network and can be optimised with minimal effort – “stopping that surface water coming in, letting it drain naturally into the environment”.

Infrastructure such as “swales on the side of roads, beautiful green ditches”, and “areas around trees where rainwater can naturally go into the ground” epitomises this approach, harnessing existing structures to “support growth”.

“Transformative” but “water-hungry” AI data centres, he argued, are also solvable: “In our sewage treatment works, we have lots of water – perfectly clean water – which we recycle and then throw away into the sea.” Instead, he insisted, that water should be used to cool data centres. AI, he urged, can be “used sustainably”.

A test of pragmatism

Gosden’s arguments were pragmatic and practical. He conceded that, viewed from a distance, these problems can seem unsolvable. When systems are combined – engaging drainage networks, customers, and different public bodies – the search for solutions becomes far more hopeful.

Final thought

Gosden’s contribution emphasised that clean growth cannot be achieved without a secure and sustainable water supply, particularly as the South East faces increasing pressure from climate change, population growth, and housing demand.

His speech – in keeping with other discussions at the conference – reinforced the region’s role as a national driver of clean growth, technological innovation and skills excellence, and its potential to shape the UK’s transition to a more resilient, knowledge-based economy.

www.southernwater.co.uk