Autumn Update from Chris Pomfret, Chair of the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership
It seems amazing but we are in Mid October and summer has passed us by without ever really arriving! However, there has been no lack of action from the LEP.
Board Meeting Update
Our last Board meeting was held on 10 October at Ecobos in St Austell. We discussed and agreed the finalisation of our Business Plan - the implementation of our strategy over the next fifteen months. This will form the basis of our application for the core support funding being offered by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills until March 2015.
Our previous Board Meeting took place on 31 July on St Mary's on the Isles of Scilly. We visited the new school and the port to see the plans for the steamship link. The Council gave us an update on their plans and we visited about half a dozen small businesses including the Brewery!! We then wrote to the Minister on behalf of the Isles of Scilly business community requesting him to make an urgent decision with regard to the proposal to dredge the harbour and improve the berth through rock armour.
We are also reviewing our LEP governance including legal documentation, one such document currently being drafted is a robust Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cornwall Council for the retention of rates growth income in the Aerohub, our Enterprise Zone at Newquay Cornwall Airport.
Regional Growth Fund
We agreed to propose spending Regional Growth Funding (RGF) on improving the runway at St Mary's Airport which will tarmac all of the second runway. We also agreed to refurbish Hangar 404 at Newquay Airport to make it safe and to remove asbestos in order that it can now be used by our first Enterprise Zone tenant, Classic Aircraft Trust, whose forthcoming arrival was announced some weeks ago. They have a collection of iconic aircraft which they will move to Newquay in October.
We also reviewed the bids we have received for all of the "Business Boost" initiatives. There are still some funds available for both the superfast and business catalyst funds - to find out more information, please visit the Cornwall Development Company website and contact the Business Boost team.
The LEP Strategy has now been endorsed by Cornwall Council who are now reviewing their own plans to try and ensure there is as much alignment as possible.
Outside the Board meetings, we have been involved in a number of other interesting events.
Lord Heseltine has been charged by the Government to look at how they might return to us a society where economic growth is the key element. I met with Lord Heseltine and subsequently, his team came to visit Cornwall to test out some of their ideas. Surprisingly we are seen as one of the leading LEPs and as confirmation of this we were recently rated within the top six in a recent poll on inward investment activity.
Chris Loughlin, Vice Chairman, and I have met with all four bidders for the new rail franchise and made the views of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly business community very clear. We think we received a positive response but the debacle over the West Coast line may now delay things.
Of course the other preoccupation has been the saga of the helicopter service. Sadly, the current operation appears to be not commercially viable and the closure is therefore inevitable. The LEP did facilitate a meeting between Tesco and the helicopter company that led to the withdrawal of the Judicial Review (JR), however this was not enough to remove the other JR challenge nor did it affect the basic commercial viability position. What now needs to happen is a full strategic study of the long term transport needs of Scilly, fully costed and the risks fully appraised; our LEP will help to drive this in line with our Strategy.
The recent Government reshuffle resulting in a new Roads Minister slightly troubled us as we had close to a full commitment to go ahead with the dualling of the A30 at Temple from the previous Minister. We have written to the new Minister asking for him to confirm that this is still the case.
We have also had some good discussions with a number of sector organisations and three have committed to writing their versions of our strategy through their eyes. This will enable us to identify the opportunities that each organisation sees, and, also the barriers to acheving them. We will be asking, through the Business Consultative Group, for other sectors to do this.
The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly application to form a Local Nature Partnership (LNP) has been successful and the partnership will be known as the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Environment Partnership and we will be shortly meeting with the chairs of the Partnership and the Health and Wellbeing Board to understand how we can work effectively together.
Chris Loughlin and I have also met with key personnel at the Environment Agency and we expressed a mutual interest to discuss any major initiatives to ensure that they work in the best economic interests of Cornwall and Scilly.
Our "Business Pulse" web portal which will provide an easy to navigate tools to access business support for all businesses is progressing well with an anticipated launch of December 2012.
Finally, we welcome two newly appointed private sector Directors. Gavin Poole, Partner at Foot Anstey and Robert Davey, Partner at Bishop Fleming. The Board now benefits from professional experts who bring an accounting and legal perspective to the Board. I would also like to put on record our thanks to Joe Keohane who has stood down as a Director because he has taken up an appointment in the pulic sector. T
his vacant position for a public/voluntary sector representative will be advertised over the next couple of weeks. Full details will be available here on the website.
Additional changes to the membership of the Board have also taken place in light of recent changes in the Cornwall Council structure, which has led to a new Leader and Cabinet Member for Economy and Regeneration. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alec Robertson and Chris Ridgers for their contribution to the Board.
