East Midlands Freeport: Turning a motorway junction into a national growth priority

The UK’s only inland freeport could not reach its potential without an upgrade to one motorway junction.

We were appointed by East Midlands Freeport (EMF) on a combined public affairs and PR brief to secure the political and public support needed to unlock the M1 Junction 24 upgrade, through a general election, a change of government and local scepticism about the freeport model.

We reframed Junction 24 from a transport scheme into a national growth priority, tied to the industrial strategy and the private investment it would unlock, making it far harder for central government to deprioritise.

We built a cross-party coalition of Midlands MPs, the newly formed East Midlands Combined County Authority and Mayor Claire Ward, civil servants at the DfT, the Treasury, National Highways and the Office for Investment, and industry partners before the case was put to decision-makers.

The centrepiece was a Westminster parliamentary event we designed and hosted, with speeches from EMF, local MP James Naish, council leaders and DfT Minister Simon Lightwood. We also drafted and coordinated Treasury submissions ahead of the Autumn Budget, while national, political and trade media relations kept Junction 24 firmly on the infrastructure agenda.

EMF secured its place at the centre of the region’s Growth Deal and as a cornerstone of the government’s regional industrial strategy, with Junction 24 recognised as a national growth priority and brought into active consideration within the fiscal process.

A local planning aspiration became a case for nationally significant infrastructure.

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