Member Article

Lancashire to reap £7.2m from Business Growth Hub

Lancashire’s economy expects to receive a £7.2m boost from a Business Growth Hub, which is being developed by the county’s Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Work started at the end of June on the hub, which has been named Boost Business Lancashire (Boost), after £3.6m was secured from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The project hopes to add £20m to Lancashire’s economy by 2015 as well as creating at least 1,200 new jobs and protecting 700 positions.

Boost is being delivered by a partnership between Lancashire County Council, Community & Business Partners, Lancaster University, Regenerate Pennine Lancashire (Regenerate), University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and Winning Pitch.

The scheme will offer a variety of services to businesses, some of which will be completely ERDF funded.

Services will include: growth mentoring; a peer-to-peer networking group called Lancashire Forum; a start-up advice service called Lancashire LEAP, UCLan’s Innovation Clinic and Winning Pitch’s GrowthAccelerator.

Edwin Booth, chairman of Lancashire LEP, said: “Lancashire’s ambitious and inspirational business leaders hold the key to growth in the county.

“We want to help them take control of business growth by bringing together firms with high growth potential and giving them the tools needed to realise their ambition.

“Whether a business has specific growth plans or not, the business support landscape for growing businesses is complex and quite often business owners and directors don’t know where to turn.

“We’re aiming to provide a unique service that allows decision makers to start the growth conversation, giving them simple access to world-class advice, some of it funded.

“Through the LEP, we’re adopting a private sector focus to the programme. Our primary target is to help ambitious, growth-hungry businesses looking to realise their potential.”

Boost also plans to provide support through a pre-selected group of private companies, who will advise on how to grow a business.

Cllr Jennifer Mein, leader of Lancashire County Council, commented: “We want a strong and sustainable economy here in Lancashire. It’s important that we have the right conditions for business growth.

“By bringing together expertise from the public and private sectors, Boost will help to bring about this growth and create new jobs in the county.”

Andy Walker, head of business growth & innovation at Lancashire County Council’s economic development service, added: “We’ve taken the time to make sure that we have the right partners in place.

“We’ve brought together leading-edge specialists, all with a track record of supporting growing businesses.

“We have a wonderful commercial pedigree in Lancashire and this programme can offer something for any ambitious company from areas such as leadership development, finance, innovation or business development.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .