SPRING 2020 A HIVE OF INDUSTRY Museum of Making gets ready for autumn opening THRILLS AND SKILLS The team designing the world’s top theme parks KEEPER OF THE CITY’S TREASURES Old Bell saviour’s rescue plan for world-famous store CELEBRATING THE CREATIVITY AND SUCCESS OF BUSINESSES IN DERBY AND DERBYSHIRE IT’S A FACT DID YOU KNOW THAT 11.8% WELCOME TO INNOVATE - A WINDOW INTO THE AMAZING AND INSPIRING DERBY OF DERBY’S WORKFORCE AND DERBYSHIRE BUSINESS SECTOR. BROUGHT TO YOU BY MARKETING DERBY, ARE IN HIGH-TECH ROLES? INNOVATE WILL SHOWCASE THE WORK OF BRILLIANT BONDHOLDERS AND LOCAL THAT’S 4X THE COMPANIES AND PROFILE THE TALENTED INDIVIDUALS LEADING THEM. ENJOY! NATIONAL AVERAGE. 2 SPRING 2020 3 CONTENTS 16 CONTRIBUTORS Star performers! How some of the world's biggest music stars are helping Derbyshire achieve cricketing success. Steve Hall Writing and editing: Steve Hall has worked in the media for more than 35 years and is a former Editor and Managing Director of the Derby Telegraph. He has won numerous industry awards, including UK 06 24 Newspaper of the Year Safe in his hands Riding high! and UK Editor of the Year. Paul Hurst has already rescued The creative business that He now runs his own the historic Old Bell Hotel - now theme parks all over the media consultancy. he's bringing back the world's globe are turning to for oldest department store. thrills and skills. 52Silk Mill - a glimpse behind the scenes 40 48 50 Andy Gilmore We take a look at progress as Derby's impressive new Breathing new life £200 million scheme Shaping up Museum of Making shapes up for its September opening. into heart of city takes a giant step for the future Design: Andy Gilmore Developers begin work Planners give their backing We look at the schemes is a creative designer on creating 800 homes at to proposals to reinvigorate that are set to transform with 12 years experience historic former hospital site. eyesore city site life in Derby city centre. in the design industry. Currently working at Katapult, Andy has worked internationally with some of the world's 62 70 76 biggest brands. We'll drink to that! Healthy ambitions 300 years of evidence Spring water company reveals Bosses at exciting new city John Forkin explains why Derby ambitious plans - after seven fitness studio want to open and Derbyshire can justifiably generations doing business dozens more operations claim to be the UK Capital of on same site. across the UK. Innovation. Ian Hodgkinson News The Last Word Images: Ian Hodgkinson 08/12/78 79 has been capturing Derbyshire life in pictures for 16 years. He's a former Deputy Picture Produced for Marketing Derby by Editor of the Derby 32 Want to get in touch? Email us at: Telegraph and now runs Talking Business - Beyond the 2020 vision [email protected] his own photography Derbyshire business leaders chat economic prospects, Brexit, business, PictureIt Media. skills, climate change and digital disruption. 4 SPRING 2020 5 PAUL HURST HAS ALREADY SAVED ONE OF DERBY’S MOST HISTORIC BUILDINGS FROM RUIN. NOW HE’S INTENT ON RESCUING THE WORLD’S OLDEST DEPARTMENT STORE. Paul Hurst’s face lights “There will be a gin bar in there. “We’ve lost so many fabulous up as he describes what There will be hair and beauty. buildings in the city and so much There will be fashion shows. There of our heritage but it’s never been customers can expect will be live painting and art classes. more important to have that when he relaunches heritage because people want the world’s oldest “There will be a lot of things experiences now,” he says. department store. happening every time you go in that you can engage with to “When they go out shopping, It won’t just be about make sure you stay a long time for a meal or a drink, they want shopping, Paul reveals. and want to keep coming back. experiences. It will be much more “There will be a fabulous food “People want to have that selfie, of an experience, hall. I looked at the original food that perfect Instagram picture. with features and hall and it’s given me all kinds People will specifically come to our entertainment designed of ideas for going forward. I’m Tudor Bar at The Old Bell to have a to drive visitors through dead excited. I have to check picture taken with a whisky by the myself because I want to share fire. You have to think about every the doors, keep them everything.” room and about whether there there and entice them is something in it that you would back time and time Most ordinary business people want to put on Instagram.” again. confronted with an opportunity to take on a failed department This brave new world, where Paul is the Derby lad who is on store, in a challenging building commerce mixes with theatre, a mission to rescue Bennetts, the and an even more challenging is a long way from Paul’s city institution which lost its way retail climate, would walk quickly career roots in engineering – and crashed into administration away. “that background gave me a last year. methodical thought process and But Paul, of course, is no ordinary that has always served me well” He is a huge enthusiast for the city business person. – and as a trouble-shooter for the and its heritage and is bursting to world’s largest printing company. share his plans with the world – but, He’s already transformed with obvious difficulty, is holding Derby’s historic The Old Bell Even in those days Paul was himself back until the right moment Hotel from closed-down, falling a travelling ambassador for his within his marketing plan. down wreck to vibrant, successful home city. business – and now, with Bennetts I coax harder … and he cracks. as well, he is fast becoming “I just love what Derby does and A little! Derby’s Restoration Man. we are shocking at promoting 6 SPRING 2020 7 1 2 PAUL HURST ENJOYS THE AMBIANCE OF THE ‘NEW’ OLD BELL. 3 4 ourselves,” he says. a three-year, £1.3 million rescue million pounds just to make the The attic rooms, that offered know what you are going to get. of work which, alone, cost £30,000. project. place wind and watertight. cheaper accommodation and It was full of surprises – some nice, “All the years I used to travel were often home to loud and like when you uncover a fireplace, “The city council said it would around in my print job, I’d visit What he had purchased was But he was determined that a rowdy guests, had remained some pretty horrendous, like when help with a grant and we got the places where no-one had heard a grade II-listed coaching inn, building with such a rich history untouched for hundreds of years you discover the floor is completely restoration done. The pay-off is of Derby and I would tell them constructed in 1650, and, at the should be restored to its former and some still had their original rotten and needs to be replaced,” that when people now go into that how amazing the city is. We don’t time, considered to be one of the glories. numbers on the doors. says Paul. room, they just say ‘wow’. talk about it enough and push finest examples outside London. ourselves enough.” In its heyday, The Old Bell was The building had welcomed all He is grateful for the support he “The council also helped us with But what Paul actually got his a major stopping off point for kinds of visitors. In 1745, some of received from Derby City Council, the front windows of the pub. They His first foray into Derby’s leisure hands on was a crumbling, stagecoaches travelling all over Bonnie Prince Charlie’s troops were advising on the conservation work all had to be taken out, numbered, sector came when he bought Café decaying hulk. the country and for mail coming in billeted in the upper rooms. In required and pointing him in the taken away, restored and then put B, on Sadler Gate, and then moved from across the world. the 1960s, John Lennon and Paul direction of grants he could access back in,” says Paul. across the street to Sadlergates. “It had been shut for a couple of McCartney called in for a drink. to help with the cost of repairs. But, although things were good, years before we bought it but it It had more than 50 hotel There have been other, smaller Paul’s head was turned by a had been neglected for a long rooms and had seven bars and And, for many years, the Tudor Bar “To be fair to the council, they were discoveries during this labour boarded-up, rundown building that time before that,” he recalls. restaurants on site. was the smoke-filled room where very good at holding our hand of love that have also left Paul he would pass each day as he Derby’s judges, politicians and and taking us through the process. amazed. made his way into work. “A lot of the rooms had been But it wasn’t just a coaching inn. police officers would gather to plot They also bought into the vision sealed up and left. There was Over the years, the building was the city’s future. and understood that this project “We pulled some floorboards up It was The Old Bell Hotel.