In Focus: A rush and a push…
Our congratulations this week go out to Nottingham’s Molecular Profiles and Leicester’s Thales – the only businesses in the East Midlands to secure cash from the government’s much-heralded Regional Growth Fund (RGF). Although Thales is being less than forthcoming with what exactly they're planning, after it emerged that its Thales Properties arm was successful.
Not so at Molecular Profiles, which is set to create around 65 extra jobs after it secured £1.6m of the £450m being handed out by the government to try and kick-start a private sector-led recovery of the economy. It’ll use the money to build a 30,000 sq ft research facility that will cost around £10m. It’s a big boost for the already high-regarded lifesciences sector in Nottingham, and more evidence that spin-outs from Nottingham University tend to be successful.
The details of the Thales bid is less clear, with no-one from the company or the government willing to give details.
However, why weren’t more East Midlands companies successful with their RGF bids? Only three were mentioned in the BIS press release that landed in my inbox earlier this week and, bizarrely, the other 'East Midlands’ company was in Luton. The sure sign of a press release coming out of London, that. Somewhere above Watford? Its must be the East Midlands…
Already, enquiring minds have begun to wonder where the other East Midlands RGF winners are. In total, 47 bids worth more than £146m were submitted from East Midlands.
George Cowcher, chief executive of the local Chamber of Commerce said: “Whilst this is fantastic news for Chamber member Molecular Profiles, a high-growth company in Nottingham, to only have one successful bid for Regional Growth Fund cash is hugely disappointing
“We were expecting at least four successful bids across the two counties, so this news has come as a blow. What we need now is clarity on why the bids have failed, as what we don’t know is whether they were weak bids or if they were wide of the mark, especially given that the original guidance from government in relation to bidding for RGF cash was so vague.”
Bidding for a second round of funding comes to an end soon and Cowcher thinks careful attention must now be paid to all future bids from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire to ensure that the two counties don’t miss out a second time.
Cowcher’s use of the word “vague” rings bells. Why? Because it was this same lack of clarity from the Government that threaten to strangle the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) before they were even born. I remember going to a meeting in Derby to launch the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire LEP bid last autumn only to find the panel presenting the case were perhaps as mystified as the audience as to what any LEP could actually do for the local economy.
The government seems intent on pushing through an entirely new agenda when it comes to the economy and enterprise. Which, I suppose, you’d expect. But surely it needs to properly explain to companies and organisations exactly what it wants and needs through these bidding processes, else we’ll be left in a very dark vacuum indeed. And no-one needs that.
Comments? Sam Metcalf, Insider
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