Address Shropshire's specific needs in Midlands Engine

Much like the Northern Powerhouse, its spiritual bedfellow, it is a bit of an abstract idea, which vaguely gestures towards accelerating growth in a huge and disparate region.

In his introduction to the new Midlands Engine strategy, Chancellor Philip Hammond said: "Stretching from Shropshire to Lincolnshire, with the M1, M6 and most of our major railway lines running through it, the Midlands sites at the very heart of the UK economy."

So how can a single document provide a meaningful strategy and overview of a region that has "key ports such as Grimsby and Immingham" at one end, and England's biggest landlocked county at the other?

The document is not necessarily a piece of gentle fluff. It's not a brochure for the region, which if anything is something of a relief.

In pointing out that the productivity gap between the Midlands and the UK average grew from 10 per cent to 15 per cent between 1997 and 2015, it at least feels less like it is sugar coating the challenges faced by businesses across the region.

So it looks at three areas of concern, which can be addressed to give the region an economic boost.

Firstly skills – the proportion of highly skilled people in the West region is about 15 per cent below the English average, and one in eight people in the West Midlands has no qualifications. Too many skilled graduates are clearing off when they complete their studies.

Secondly, the region's economy is "fragmented into small, poorly-connected areas". That means the whole is less than the sum of its parts, the document says. You might be tempted to ask whether we could all become a bit more interlinked if we had better transport links, not to mention mobile and broadband, but that's not for me to say.

Thirdly – and I warned you that this wasn't a sugar-coated document – "there is a lack of entrepreneurship and economic dynamism".

Ouch. Shropshire is a county that is proud of its small businesses, but the Midlands Engine Strategy tells us that across the region the number of businesses created per 100,000 people is less than half that of London.

There are, then, five objectives to help us all do a bit better and turn the Midlands into an "economic powerhouse", to borrow the language of the Government.

We need to improve connectivity, strengthen skills, support enterprise and innovation, promote the Midlands nationally and internationally, and enhance the quality of life to attract and retain skilled workers – an issue which is relevant in Shropshire, which struggles to keep hold of bright young talent.

Now that's a mixed bag. The need to "improve connectivity" as a means of boosting the Shropshire economy could hardly be more obvious if those words were carved into the side of the Wrekin.

Yet the strategy doesn't mention Shropshire's connectivity.

It mentions urban congestion, roads around Loughborough, and the launch of 5G mobile signal, but are any of those issues really of relevance to a county that only has dual carriageways halfway in, and where a lot of people are lucky to get 3G signal in their homes, never mind 5G.

Other areas around skills and business support seem a bit more democratic, but when it comes to connecting Shropshire to the wider region and watching the money roll in, it's time to get the basics right before we start talking about smart motorways.

We should all get behind the concept of the Midlands Engine if it means a stronger overall economy, but it's important that our rural county doesn't get lost when thrown into a melting pot with cities like Nottingham, Leicester and Birmingham.