THE ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE HISTORIC AND CLASSIC MOTOR INDUSTRY IN THE UK

65 The Cebr research on the contribution of historic buildings to the economy calculated that they contributed £36.6 billion per annum to the UK’s GVA and in total to supporting 564,000 jobs. This compares with an aggregate GVA contribution of £ 7.1 billion per annum from historic vehicles excluding imputed rent, supporting 113,000 jobs. Most metrics show the historic vehicles sector as contributing about a fifth as much to the economy as all the historic buildings in the country. This is a very significant and impressive result and shows how important vehicles are as a contributor to the national heritage. 14.5 Conservation The sector is essentially based on conservation, which is becoming an essential part of a modern economy. The conservation is embedded not only in the vehicles but in the museums, the usage and in the craft skills required to keep the vehicles in existence. 14.6 Bicester Heritage One area where historic buildings and historic cars coincide is the innovative development Bicester Heritage. Bicester Heritage is the first business campus dedicated to historic motoring, based at the UK’s best -preserved WW2 RAF bomber station – the former RAF Bicester. The RAF’s Technical Sit e has been restored and updated for modern purpose, creating not just a destination, but a thriving hub of industry geared toward supporting the wider motoring community. The owners of the site have refurbished and restored the red brick buildings, hangars, tree-lined avenues and airfield to provide an authentic period setting for specialists, vehicle owners, enthusiasts and visitors to meet, share their passions and immerse themselves in a classic age. The economics of the cluster of businesses operating from Bicester Heritage reflect the ability to minimise one of the key costs in the vertically disintegrated sector. Because of the differentiated specialist skills involved, one of the major costs for the classic car sector is travelling and ferrying parts between suppliers. Bicester Heritage has benefitted from sufficient demand and sufficient space to try to enable key specialist suppliers to be on the same site. This significantly boosts productivity. Bicester Heritage is a component of Bicester Motion, a more extensive development which plans to create the UK’s principal destination for anyone who wants to experience motor cars from all eras, including the future. Bicester Motion is planned to be an important visitor attraction, offering an authentic collection of dynamic and inclusive visitor experiences, arranged over four hundred acres and home to four Quarters: Innovation, Heritage, Experience and Wilderness. Within these, guests will be able to immerse themselves in the breadth of British automotive and aviation culture past, present and future, and explore open parkland, beautiful lakes, nature trails and relax in the trackside hotel and lakeside lodges which will surround this unique destination. 14.7 Regional distribution of the sector There is no data on how the sector is distributed regionally. But there is some regional data on the distribution of classic cars for sale. We have used this to produce a rough and ready set of estimates of how turnover, GVA and employment for the sector might be distributed around the country. These are shown i n Table 24. We warn against placing too much reliance on what must inevitably be a very rough and ready calculation. But even with this caveat, it is clear that this is a sector with a very wide distribution around the UK. London, despite its economic dominance, only accounts for 5% of the activity. Meanwhile the West Midlands, traditional home of the motor industry, accounts for nearly twice as much. It is clear that this is a widely dispersed industry.