Returning from the Annual Hospitality Conference in Manchester earlier this month, I was reminded why the sector continues to inspire me. It’s the people, the passion and the shared ambition to create great places for people to experience, in an ever-changing world.

At Clyde Gateway, we are working with the community and partners in Calton, an area facing significant social and economic challenges, to test new approaches to tackling child poverty. Families here face multiple barriers, from language and childcare to health and caring responsibilities that restrict their ability to move into work. Our Demonstration of Change, part of Glasgow City Council’s Child Poverty Programme, is showing that childcare, when treated as economic infrastructure, can unlock opportunity and act as a genuine poverty exit strategy.

A bold new £500 million vision to strengthen a major Scottish location for innovation, High Value Manufacturing, business space and green growth in Glasgow will be unveiled today with plans for business space, hotels and hundreds of homes delivering a coherent and cohesive proposition to ‘connect, collaborate, and create’.

The new ‘Clyde Gateway Innovation’ initiative will transform over 100 hectares - equivalent to the size of over 130 football pitches - of prime development land in Glasgow’s east end and South Lanarkshire into a dynamic, mixed-use ecosystem designed to create high-value jobs, deliver sustainable business growth and sustain increased inward investment.