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Top story
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Football museum takes culture prize in Liverpool
The National Football Museum last night scooped this year’s £20,000 Lever Prize award, becoming the fourth cultural organisation to receive the prestigious accolade at an exclusive awards ceremony hosted by last year’s winners, Tate Liverpool. The award was presented to Kevin Moore, the museum director, and Paul Dermody, chairman of trustees, by minister for sport Gerry Sutcliffe. The prize, launched four years ago, aims to revive the philanthropic traditions of the industrial past, embodied by soap magnate and patron of the arts Lord Lever and is judged by the North West Business Leadership Team, in partnership with Culture Northwest and Arts and Business North West.
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Today's news
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New director for Liverpool One
The Liverpool One Management Company has appointed Chris Bliss as its estate director, following the departure of the retail scheme’s chief executive, Joanne Jennings. Bliss will have full responsibility for property management services delivery across Liverpool One. He previously worked as the project facilities manager responsible for the delivery of site-wide services for Liverpool One. 
Tunnel toll price freeze confirmed
Merseytravel has confirmed that it will freeze tunnel tolls at their current levels until March 2010 following a meeting yesterday of the Passenger Transport Authority (PTA). Merseytravel chairman Mark Dowd said: “We have a responsibility to support businesses and people as much as we can through this difficult time. Like every other PTA we have financial pressures but we hope people appreciate what we are trying to do with these price freezes.”
Paver Smith picks up Pazang
You can’t keep a good man down. Paver Smith, the Liverpool PR agency led by Dougal Paver, the Duracell bunny of North West PR, has added further momentum to its new Manchester operation with the acquisition of Wilmslow-based boutique agency Pazang. The move follows the departure of founder Tanya Arturi following the recent birth of her first son and her desire to focus on developing lifestyle magazine Prestbury Living. Pazang account director Charlotte Jones will join Paver Smith. Paver said: “We’ll take growth and high-calibre people from wherever they may come.”
HWP secures two in Prenton
Liverpool property agency Hitchcock, Wright & Partners (HWP) has confirmed two new lettings at Prenton Business Park on the Wirral. Registered social landlord Wirral Partnership Homes (WPH) and home improvement directory business Fairtrades have each taken units of 3,246 sq ft, WPH’s for a satellite office and Fairtrades’ for a new head office. Prenton Business Park was completed in early 2008 as a speculatively developed scheme by Derwent Holdings.
Survive and thrive in the North West
The Northwest Regional Development Agency has launched a series of Survive and Thrive events across the region to support businesses through the current economic climate and position them more competitively to seize new opportunities. The events will be delivered by The Manufacturing Institute and Business Link through March and April across the region. All of the events will be free of charge to regional businesses and will tackle issues of leadership, strategy and people development, finance, sales and marketing, productivity and innovation.
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Something for the weekend
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Deal of the week
Yes, it’s still possible to do a management buyout in the current climate. MLR Networks, an IT infrastructure company based in Widnes, has been acquired by managing director Ian Morris, alongside Steve Woods, who becomes operations director. And to demonstrate that funding sources for these deals are becoming more diverse, Skipton Business Finance, the factoring and invoice discounting arm of Skipton Building Society, stepped in to fund it.
New Insider out this week
It’s tough out there and bad things are happening to good businesses, but February’s Insider looks for the reasons to be cheerful. We’ve aimed to focus on some of the positive stories coming out of the North West and have found some real gems. There’s an interview with iTeddy entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den star Imran Hakim, a look at the unstoppable train that is the Burnley-headquartered Original Factory Shop and the first in our new Thought Leaders Forum series.
Lost in France
Gone are the days of even the budget airlines quoting upwards of £800 to get to international property exhibition MIPIM and back from a full six months before the event. A cursory check yesterday morning revealed that flights between Liverpool and Nice, going out Wednesday and back Saturday, could be secured for less than £100. The monkeys may not be bothering this year, but the organ-grinders will, so it looks a great chance to book before they have to rename MIPIM from Massive to Medium-sized International Piss-up in the Med.
Ballroom blitz
Diaries out. Camilla Dallerup, whose winning foxtrot and salsa combo with Holby City actor Tom Chambers wowed millions on BBC1 last Christmas (it says here), will wow Liverpool punters at St George’s Hall on 21 March with fellow rug-cutter Ian Waite. As long as they don’t scratch that lovely floor. Never mind blokey Clarkson-inspired track days, we’d like to see the business community embrace the Strictly phenomenon – what’s not to like about accountants and lawyers twirling round in sequins?
View from the nationals – Gosling-Gate special
ITV has come under heavy fire for its lapse during the Everton-Liverpool replay on Wednesday night, when viewers who’d sat through a largely uninspired two hours missed Dan Gosling’s winner thanks to images from Goodison being replaced by ads. Interesting to see in the coverage of “Gosling-Gate” though that the early morning coverage talked of how “ITV viewers missed out…” only to be altered later when someone from outside the M25 let it be known that much of the country did in fact see the goal. Must be all that snow blocking the lines of communication.
Headline act
We’re quite fond of Superlambananas here and celebrated the news that the sculpture is to (sort of) stay in Liverpool with joyful abandon. Even better was the headline on Liverpool City Council’s press release: “Culture city in New-perlambanana deal”. Rather sheepishly, we’ve decided we can’t beat that, so rather than ram the point home we’ve decided it’s better the devil ewe know.
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