The City Deal is one of several being developed in regional areas of Australia that is a collaboration between the federal, state and local governments with the first one in Townsville being signed in December.

Launceston, Townsville and Western Sydney are being developed as a series of “early” City Deals that will be the first ones of their kind in the country.

Townsville is in the process of implementing its City Deal with a document outlining its objectives released to the public recently.

The objectives include: establishing Townsville as the capital of North Queensland, to establish it as an industry powerhouse, ensure it is an innovative and connected city, a port city and a defence hub.

The City Deal is a set of commitments that involves all three levels of government to assist Launceston to become more economically vibrant.

“If you want to develop growth there is no one silver bullet,” he said.

Mr Taylor said the university campus move, the clean-up of the Tamar River and engagement with industry were all high on the priority list for the Launceston deal.

“The economic benefits that will flow from the clean-up of the Tamar estuary is a central part to that,” he said.

Mr Taylor said Launceston was on the cusp of reaping the rewards of its potential but had suffered economically for the past few years.

“Launceston has enormous potential,” he said.

The City Deal will assist to help address some of those economic challenges and turn it into a “vibrant, university city” like those in the United Kingdom.

“What we see see is university-focused CBDs do better with jobs and do better with industry,” he said.

“We want to see a string of links between industry and the university and between the university and the city.”

He said while the City Deal did focus on the CBD of Launceston he had been working closely with the mayors of Greater Launceston and also with the City of Launceston council regarding the future of the Northern suburbs.

Also included in talks with industry and council was the future of the Mowbray campus of the university but Mr Taylor said no concrete decisions had been made on that yet.

“We have always done well in Australia in terms of economy but what we haven’t done well is to establish the links between the thinkers and the doers and that's what the City Deals will try to address,” he said.

The Launceston City Deal aims is expected to be completed and made public in the next couple of month once it has been signed off.

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