2020 has been a whirlwind for businesses in the region, so I thought I’d pen a quick blog rounding up key activity that the Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative team and business community has been working on in recent months.
Swindon Borough
Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative Director Ian Larrard sits on the Towns Fund Board and was involved in the development of the Town Investment Plan, with Swindon MPs Robert Buckland and Justin Tomlinson, Council Leader David Renard, Councillors and leaders from the National Trust, Nationwide, Network Rail and others to bid for up to £25m from a pre COVID pot of money to develop the Town Centre.
The bid was submitted at the end of July and we expect a response in the next few weeks.
Ian also sits on the Honda National Taskforce alongside BEIS, SWLEP, Swindon Borough Council and Honda themselves. The Taskforce established in February 2019 has been gearing up to help those affected by the closure at the end of July 2021, as well as finding a use for their, soon to be vacant, 375 acre site.
As one of the largest employment land sites between London and South Wales, which includes a runway and a railhead, it is an enticing proposition for inward investment.
Education and skills
Over the summer the Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative team, led by Ian Larrard, was heavily involved in the merger of the two further education colleges in Swindon.
Despite facing many challenges (including COVID-19), this was successfully achieved in mid-August and helps facilitate the creation of the new Institute of Technology which will open next September.
The newly merged college and Institute of Technology are very much a partnership between business and education and will provide demand led courses for our learners.
Town centre bounce back
As the Chair of inSwindon BID, Ian was part of a team that led on efforts to help the c.500 businesses in Swindon town centre weather the first coronavirus lockdown.
inSwindon BID provided tailored business support and launched a number of marketing campaigns to tempt shoppers back into the town centre in the summer and early autumn, including a virtual Christmas lights switch on in October.
Testament to their efforts, 18 new independent shops have opened in Swindon town centre over the last few months.
Plans for a new Cultural Quarter in Swindon have just been approved by the Council. The plans include a 1,200-seat theatre/arts venue, a new museum, art gallery, dance centre and digital studio. At an estimated cost of £80m this will be a major investment in the town centre, which we at Business West are fully supportive of.
Public health and mental wellbeing
Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative speaks on behalf of the business community feeding into public health matters through its membership of the Swindon Borough Council Health and Wellbeing Board.
Made up of senior multiagency figures including Council Leader David Renard, Chief Constable Kier Pritchard and Director of Public Health Steve Maddern, the Health and Wellbeing board has been instrumental in coordinating the response to COVID-19 locally.
So much so that earlier in the year Swindon Borough Council managed to avoid a damaging local lockdown by stemming the tide of spiralling infection rates across Swindon.
Throughout this year, our monthly Business & Economy meetings have provided an additional forum for businesses to help shape the local public health and economic response to COVID-19, with Steve Maddern and other council figures joining the calls.
As partners of the Swindon Mindful Employer Network along with Swindon & Gloucestershire Mind and commissioned by Swindon Borough Council we have helped organise events throughout 2020 to aid and encourage Swindon employers to support the mental health of their employees.
Guest speakers have included WASCU (Wilts and Swindon Credit Union), Tasting Colours, TeamDoctor and more, each of whom have delivered a powerful message to the Swindon employer community about the importance of prioritising staff mental health and wellbeing in these testing times.
Manufacturing sector
Our inaugural Manufacturers Cluster Group meeting in October was a great success and was well attended by some of Swindon & Wiltshire’s largest employers.
The group has been established to enable Swindon & Wiltshire manufacturing businesses to exchange ideas and shape conditions for the sector locally.
From infrastructure and supply chain issues to skills and apprenticeships, the Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative Manufacturing Cluster Group will engage with businesses and local decision makers on a range of issues to develop the future of manufacturing in the area.
We held our next event at the end of November, focusing on Brexit, as the end of the EU transition period nears. We are also looking to widen the Cluster to include Gloucestershire especially as these meetings are delivered virtually and likely to continue in that form post COVID.
Local economy, growth and investment
In conjunction with the Bank of England and their regional agent for the South West, Malindi Myers, we held a very successful meeting with some of Swindon & Wiltshire’s largest employers where we were joined by independent member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Jan Vlieghe.
The meeting enabled employers to feed into national decision making by providing intelligence of business conditions locally.
In recent weeks I have been working closely with the Switch on to Swindon editorial committee to help capture and share positive business stories about Swindon, with the aim of attracting inward investment.
This follows a number of major developments already announced.
The biggest storage and distribution deal in British history has just taken place in Swindon. A 2.3 million sq feet warehouse has been commissioned by and sold to Legal & General Investments for £200million and is on a 20-year lease to one of the world’s largest online retailers for £10million a year.
Not yet built, it should be completed and open within the next year and will create 2,000 new jobs. A massive coup for the town.
Work has also commenced on the new Zurich Swindon HQ. The 100,000 sq ft building will accommodate one of Swindon’s largest employers and will be completed in 2022.
It is hoped that this building will be a catalyst for similar developments in the Kimmerfields area of Swindon.
Wiltshire developments - Stonehenge bypass and our MPs
The landscape in Wiltshire is about to undergo a massive change with a long-awaited bypass on the A303.
The Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative team has been engaging with Highways England throughout this process to ensure that the voice of business is being heard in terms of the local impact of the bypass and commercial involvement in its construction.
The project was signed off by the Secretary of State last week and the work is due to be completed by 2026.
The Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative have agreed with two of our Wiltshire MPs, Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) and Danny Kruger (Devizes), to hold regular meetings, similar to our very successful MPs quarterly meetings in Swindon, throughout 2021.
Initiative Manager for Wiltshire, Dee Temple-Multon, now sits on the area’s Business Intelligence and Networking Group (BING), which consists of 23 different organisations including the LEP and councils. It meets on a monthly basis to discuss the current challenges faced by local businesses and provides a platform for partners to share local knowledge and identify how they can all support business across the region.
At a recent Swindon & Wiltshire Business and Economy meeting, CEO of Visit Wiltshire David Andrews, revealed that Wiltshire has just been named in a Tourism Industry Poll as the UK’s No.1 tourist destination!
Membership news
Our business community continues to grow.
In recent months we have welcomed GWR, Dialogue Language Services, Bioviron International, CityFibre, WeDo HR Services and Swindon Carers Centre to the Initiative fold.
And finally … New areas of focus
We are now approaching the 30-day mark before an EU Transition deal needs to be signed. Much work has been done with members and professionals in readiness for the start of 2021. This has included introducing professional firms to our excellent Export Documentation team at Business West for their knowledge and guidance on Customs Declarations.
We are also turning our attention back to our Climate Policy at Business West. In this regard we are launching local initiatives to bring together resident businesses directly involved in the world of climate change, plus a second group of members who are at different stages in their net zero transition.
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