Executive Member Report to Council s5

EXECUTIVE MEMBER REPORT TO COUNCIL WEDNESDAY, 9 JANUARY 2008

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

BUSINESS SUPPORT

LEGI/Enterprise Gateways

The recent Comprehensive Spending Review announced that there will not be a further round of LEGI. This was disappointing news as there was a real hope that the Council would have had another opportunity to secure funding in order to implement the range of innovative workstreams which were created as part of the Middlesbrough/Stockton second round LEGI bid.

However, funding has been secured to implement pilot schemes of some of the proposed LEGI workstreams. One particular workstream is the Neighbourhood Enterprise & Employment Gateways, which focused on developing proactive grass roots support, via existing community based centres, to encourage and support people into self- employment. Pilot schemes have been established in East and West Middlesbrough, working with the STEM project in East Middlesbrough, and the West Middlesbrough Neighbourhood Trust in West Middlesbrough. Funding of approximately £75,000 for both pilots has come from a mixture of the Local Authority Business Growth Incentive (LABGI) settlement and from the Deprived Areas Fund. Both pilots are funded until the end of March 2008. There is a strong desire to sustain the pilots beyond March 2008, depending on the performance of the pilots and available funding.

In order to draw the LEGI efforts to a close and to thank all partners and contributors for their efforts, Middlesbrough and Stockton Borough Councils are holding an event on the 12 December to provide an update on progress with LEGI initiatives as well as Government Office North East providing information on potential future funding schemes.

Enterprise Week - 12 to 16 November 2007

Enterprise Week is a national event held annually to promote and to help gain a better insight into enterprise for young people. Campaigns are held in all regions, with the Tees Valley campaign centred on 'Make your Mark in Tees Valley'. The Make your Mark in Tees Valley campaign was very proactive in engaging with a range of schools and agencies. The five local authorities all contributed to the week’s events to ensure all

1 activities were supported. The week included activities such as Make your Mark Challenges and specific days of activity to support women and social enterprises.

The week’s events ended with a celebration event for participants and agencies at the Riverside Stadium on 16 November. The campaign for 2007 was more successful than the previous year with more young people being engaged and more events regionally than in previous years.

Enterprise Centre Portfolio As part of an investment programme supported through the Local Authority Business Growth Incentive (LABGI) funding, the Enterprise Centre portfolio, which includes Multi- Media Exchange, Broadcasting House, Southlands Centre, Beresford Buildings, Brentnall Centre and Stockton Street Workshops, is benefiting from at least £108,000 of capital improvements.

With an initial fund of £50,000, match funding has been secured to enable a variety of works to be undertaken, including:

 a new entrance and reception area at Broadcasting House;  the introduction/upgrade of CCTV equipment installed across the portfolio;  a new telephone switchboard at Broadcasting House;  improvements to the landscaped environment at Southlands Centre and;  part of a bid for further funding through the E-Government process to improve conference facilities at both Multi-Media Exchange and Southlands Centre.

Middlesbrough Liaison Meetings (MLM)

The Middlesbrough Liaison group has been re-launched to deliver a joined-up business support network throughout the Middlesbrough area, with an aim to encourage entrepreneurship and enterprise in Middlesbrough.

The key objectives of the MLM are:

 to keep the business support network up to speed with pertinent developments in the Middlesbrough area;  provide information on new initiatives that will benefit local businesses – new & existing;  improve communication between business support organisations within the Middlesbrough area;  to enhance the effectiveness of good networking and signposting practice within the network;  evaluate and enhance the quality of business support in the Middlesbrough area;

2  to feed relevant information to the Middlesbrough Partnership, the Tees Valley Business Support Partnership and the Local Strategic Partnership;  to provide a co-ordinated approach to promote Middlesbrough as an attractive proposition to investors; and  to lobby on behalf of Middlesbrough companies for better services and support to help them establish and grow.

Membership of the Middlesbrough Liaison Meeting includes representatives from Middlesbrough Council, Entrust, North East Chamber of Commerce, University of Teesside, Business Link North East, Job Centre Plus, the Federation of Small Businesses, LSC, Tees Valley Regeneration and UK Steel Enterprises.

Riverside Park Business Forum The Riverside Park business forum has been in existence since 2001 and helped to steer the Council’s Riverside Renaissance project, which secured funding to undertake substantial improvements to Riverside Park from 2002 to 2006.

The latest event took place on 27 November. The aim of the forum is to work with partner organisations and Middlesbrough Council to identify and to tackle issues which will support the continued regeneration of this key business location. The evening started with a recap of the improvements and work that has taken place at Riverside Park, followed by an update on future developments and planned initiatives. Over 50 businesses attended and were provided with an update on the North Middlesbrough Accessibility project. In addition, businesses were advised of a new environmental project, which is being launched in Riverside Park as a pilot to encourage businesses to recycle their waste products. The pilot scheme is a partnership between Middlesbrough Council and NISP (National Industrial Symbiosis Programme), which is based within the University of Teesside. NISP connect businesses with aim of linking one business’ waste with another business that can use the waste, thereby ensuring as much waste as possible is recycled. The project aims to support Riverside Park businesses by helping them to re-use their waste materials and therefore both reduce the cost of disposal, and promote recycling.

Future Riverside Park Business Forum events will continue to update companies on activity on the estate and to provide consultation regarding future activity.

Alive After Five Alive After Five launched on 4 October to promote Middlesbrough as a Thursday late night shopping destination. The campaign is supported by town centre shopping centres and large space users such as Binns, Debenhams, Boots, Bhs, George, Next etc.

3 As anticipated trading was slow at the beginning of the campaign and gradually picked up towards the end of October when Alive After Five ran into the start of the Christmas campaign. Thursday late night trading is now strong with stores remaining open until 9.00 pm on Thursdays through Christmas.

It is anticipated that there will be a trading dip throughout January and February following the busy Christmas period and footfall levels normally subside. A campaign lift is being planned for February to raise awareness and hopefully encourage more retailers and businesses to stay open late on a Thursday.

Christmas 2007 The Christmas celebrations took place on Sunday 18 November when the Cairngorm Reindeer visited Middlesbrough town centre for the annual Christmas parade. The celebrations were organised with the Council’s Events Team. Despite the cold wet weather an estimated 16,000 people lined the streets to watch the parade make its way around the town centre and through the shopping centres. The parade was organised in less than four weeks due to restrictions on the movement of animals following the foot and mouth out break and then blue tongue. Fortunately the north east of England was declared clear of contamination which allowed the parade to go ahead.

Working closely with Cultural Services a number of schools were invited to work closely with an arts company to produce paper lanterns for the parade. The Stiltkins stilt walkers and Tees Valley Drummers also appeared in the line up. As a special surprise Cinderella was pulled in her coach by miniature ponies at the back of the parade. Planning for the 2008 event will start in January.

The town centre itself appeared to benefit greatly from the presence of such a large crowd and there is evidence that people came into town earlier to shop and eat rather than just view the parade and leave.

Middlesbrough Town Centre Partnership A new Town Centre Partnership is being formed to replace the previous Board of Middlesbrough Town Centre Company. It has been widely recognised that the partnership work of the Company should continue and a new partnership group will be developed to take forward issues specifically relating to the town centre.

The partnership aims to represent a wide range of town centre interests and this will be represented in the composition of the group. The proposed group will include the following nominated representatives:

 Town Centre Business Group  Shopping Centre

4  Independent retailer  Leisure/Pub Watch  Chamber of Commerce  Office sector  Local authority (Environment)  Local authority (Regeneration)  Council Executive member(s) Environment/Regeneration  Community  University/College  Police  Co-optees agreed by the Partnership

The first meeting of the new partnership will take place in January 2008.

EMPLOYMENT INITIATIVES

Disadvantaged Areas Fund (Jobcentre Plus)

Of the £652,752 funding available to Middlesbrough £558,139 has now been allocated with four further projects being identified and currently going through the JCP procurement process.

Project Description Amount Working Links – Virtual Submitted directly to JCP this project will £50k Shop provide retail training BME’s pre employment This funding extension will enable the project £25k support to be rolled out to other DAF wards in Middlesbrough Enterprise Academy - Engage with 18-24 year olds to reinforce £25k Work it out literacy and numeracy West Middlesbrough Engage with 16–18 year olds to realise £15k Neighbourhood Trust – aspirations and promote a culture of work, Peer Support training and learning

Stakeholder Event

An event was held for partners and potential partners in the Middlesbrough Works Neighbourhood Employment Gateway project on 14 November 2007. The event looked at the Council’s role in the future of the Gateways and attendees endorsed the Councils co-ordinating role. A steering group will be set up to look at developing future funding bids and providers will take on the role of supporting residents into employment.