Gloucestershire's Local Enterprise Partnership flies high at latest annual review
GFirst Local Enterprise Partnership hosted its latest annual review on a British Airways Boeing 747, now repurposed as a party plane at Cotswold Airport near Cirencester.
More than 200 representatives from businesses across the county heard from GFirst CEO, David Owen, on the achievements of the last two years – and it's been tough.
The Local Enterprise Partnership found itself in the eye of the pandemic storm, and it rose to the occasion, supporting companies through the pandemic, making sure that news and information flowed freely, daily and launching a business recovery toolkit to help those who were fighting back.
At the same time it has been ploughing forward on the capital projects which it hopes will make Gloucestershire the go-to destination for key sectors of the economy: cyber, sustainable energy, agritech, digital and construction skills.
In 2017 the GFirst LEP secured £23.6 million of Growth Deal funding from central Government to deliver the West Cheltenham Transport Improvement Scheme (WCTIS), the LEP’s largest investment project to date. This month, the LEP and project partners, Gloucestershire County Council, Atkins Ltd, Alun Griffiths Ltd, Knights Brown Construction Ltd and Cheltenham Borough Council came together to formally mark the completion of the Scheme.
It hopes that the £23.6m Growth Fund investment will leverage in tens of millions of further investment from the private and public sector to create Cyber Central UK, “the home of UK Cyber Technology” and the wider Golden Valley Development. The development is expected to eventually support over 11,000 jobs and will deliver 4,000 new homes.
A £4.48m new development digital education centre at Cirencester College also opened this month.
Excitingly for its cyber plans, Gloucestershire has been chosen by the Department for International Trade to be showcased as a world-leading cyber cluster through the High Potential Opportunities (HPO) programme.
The programme aims to help accelerate the growth of business and industry, boost local job creation and prosperity, and strengthen the UK’s sectorial advantage.
Elsewhere across the county, investment in agritech and other facilities is ongoing at Hartpury College and University,
Gloucestershire Airport, which describes itself as the UK’s busiest general aviation airport, has successfully completed major upgrades to its crosswind (04-22) and main (9-27) runways, which involved runway resurfacing, installation of new runway lighting, upgrades to signs and drainage and new below-ground infrastructure in readiness for a new radar system.
AccXel, a new Construction Skills Accelerator Centre opened in Cinderford last year. AccXel has been co-funded by the government, GFirst LEP and the family-owned construction business, K W Bell Group. The school has been established to tackle the severe skills shortage plaguing the construction industry, by recruiting new talent to the sector, helping the existing workforce progress to the next phase of their career and connecting both the education and industry sector to accelerate new skills.
A multi-million-pound business and arts centre's taking shape in the centre of Cheltenham.
The Minster Exchange (MX) project will house 20,000 square feet of state of the art workspace, a home for The Growth Hub to support business development, a purpose-built events space, café, community and education space.
Gloucestershire continues to be ambitious – and that includes a major inward investment strategy which it hopes will see other companies, follow ZeroAvia, the world’s leading innovator in decarbonising aviation, to the county. The company opened a major facility at Cotswold Airport at Kemble last year, using the facility as its base for developing the breakthrough HyFlyer II project, a hydrogen-electric powered aircraft which solely emits water vapour during flight, potentially making it the future of carbon zero air travel.
