£30m from Gloucestershire County Council's pension pot will help tackle housing crisis
Want to see an ethical investment actually changing the lives of hundreds of people? Look no further than Gloucestershire’s biggest employer's pension fund. It’s about to do something remarkable.
Dear reader,
Welcome to your first edition of The Raikes Journal of the week.
We ended last week with another devolution-related story leading Friday’s edition - one exploring just what the reognisation of the county’s local authorities might mean for the much-trumpeted multi-million pound tech park and housing development, The Golden Valley.
Hopefully it also answered the big question some had been asking - about whether the Cheltenham Borough Council scheme is in jeopardy as a result of the UK-wide re-think on both county and district authorities.
You can read it here (Golden Valley Development), if you missed it.
Below is our usual selection of briefing notes - our shortlist of news stories of merit - plus our usual mini-spotlight on a charity in the county, some diary dates and a main story.
But before we get to to all that, we wanted to mention how you can see past the paywalls on Raikes by referring your friends to sign up for our email editions!
Regular readers will know that we paywall many articles on Raikes to help make this community interest company sustainable and help pay for our orginal journalism.
Whether you have subscribed or not, if you refer those you think will also be interested you will win yourself a free pass for up to six months beyond the paywalls - a reward for helping spread the word about what we do.
Have a great week.
Andrew Merrell (editor).
If you have a story, an issue, a news item, a charity or an interview you want us to write about or investigate, challenge the powers that be on, then please email me: andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
Generosity of spirit underlined by a most unusual business
Mark Hews, group chief executive of the Benefact Group, the owner of Ecclesiastical Insurance, said: “We know that charities are struggling. I’m very grateful to everyone that voted for a charity and congratulations to the lucky recipients.” Hews was acknowledging the incredible generosity of those who attended Ecclesiastical’s Christmas carol service at Gloucester Cathedral. Figures have just been released which reveal a plate collection on the evening also raised £1,429.73 which Benefact Group has sincematch-funded, bringing the total to £2,859.46. That sum is being split evenly between Gloucester Cathedral and The Salvation Army (Gloucester branch), whose band performed on the evening. But that’s only part of the story. Attendees on December 17 were also invited to nominate their favourite Gloucestershire-based charity to receive £1,000 awards as part of Benefact Group’s annual Movement for Good Awards, which gives more than £1 million to good causes annually. The three winning charities have now been revealed as The Butterfly Garden, Caring for Communities and People (CCP) and the Listening Post. Ecclesiastical, a major Gloucester-headquartered employer, gives all its profits it makes not to shareholders, but to good causes. It’s given away an estimated £220 million to charities in the past 10 years and aims to reach £250 million by 2025.
Your briefing notes…
🏗️ A scheme that could unlock £20 million in Government funding and kickstart £50 million of investment into Podsmead in Gloucester has gone before city planners with the business behind the scheme warning delays could result in the loss of this funding and the opportunity to commence construction in March 2025. Gloucester City Homes has submitted a comprehensive planning application to the local authority, the result of more than seven years of work and collaboration and consultations. City firm Quattro Design Architects helped put together the plans. The scheme focuses on 173 new homes, shops, a community space, and a pharmacy, as well as an improved road layout. GCH has allocated £30 million from its business plan and secured £20 million in Government grants, contingent on planning approval.
💷 The University of Gloucestershire’s Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) has been awarded “a substantial five-year contract” by the European Union (EU) as part of an international research consortium. Featuring world-leading researchers, the CCRI is joining forces with the European Commission – the primary executive arm of the EU – project lead and consulting company ADE from Belgium, the Council for Agriculture and Economic Research in Italy, and consultants OIR from Austria and IfLS from Germany, to evaluate aspects of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Each of the projects within the five-year contract could last up to 15 months and earn the university a total of £1 million.
🥦 For those who know Gloucestershire well and are familiar with a certain energy company in Stroud the question - ‘which county business has opened what it believes is the UK’s first ever plant-based workplace canteen?’ - will elicit only one answer; Ecotricity. The ‘green energy’ firm is run by high-profile businessman and vegan, Dale Vince, also the owner of Forest Green Rovers FC. Vince, who’s on a one-man mission to make everyone think more seriously about what they eat and the energy they use, said “The future is plant-based, and the sooner we get there, the better for us all.”
🏗️ One of Gloucestershire’s biggest and most successful property management and development firms, Robert Hitchins, has sold a 25,000-square-feet warehouse in Stonehouse for £2.7m after a programme of refurbishment. Unit 5, Brunel Way, Stroudwater Business Park, is described as ‘a self-contained warehouse and two-storey offices just off the A419 and close to junction 13 of the M5’. Robert Hitchins acquired the unit 10 months ago as part of a wider transaction with Greiner Bio-One, delivering a new purpose-built 53,500 sq ft facility at its nearby Stroudwater 13 Business Park for the pharmaceutical company to expand into. Agents for the just-sold property were Alder King.
🎶🍽️ We liked this story on the Stroud Times website about about The Old Music Centre, a Stroud eatery attracting famous names and plenty of praise. The building has been restored by artist Dan Chadwick and renamed Juliet, after his wife. Opening in October last year it’s apparently already become a popular draw with various celebrities taking to social media to sing its praises. You can read the Stroud Times story here.
🙌 📰☕ We wanted to flag this because we simply think it is brilliant. As the media landscape has changed, keeping a handle on what’s happening in Gloucester, for example, can mean keeping abreast of news across multiple platforms and channels. In other words, impossible. Until now. There’s now a single email newsletter you can sign up to that delivers the top line of the most interesting and important stories direct to your inbox daily. It’s called The Gloucester Start. It’s run by a journalist, Tom Gibbon, and it’s possibly the future of local news in Gloucestershire. You can find out more by clicking the link above and sign up for free or sign up to support.
Hartpury alumni named as England, Wales and Ireland women’s rugby captains
Three Hartpury University and Hartpury College alumni have been named as captains for their respective women’s rugby national teams this year. Zoe Aldcroft (former Level 3 sport diploma and BSc Sport and Exercise Sciences student) has been named as England captain for 2025. Fellow alumna Hannah Jones (BSc (Hons) Sports Therapy) has also been named captain of Wales while Hartpury staff member Sam Monaghan (forwards coach) is confirmed as captain of Ireland. Aldcroft was named World Player of the Year in 2021 and has co-captained Gloucester Hartpury RFC to the last two Premiership Women's Rugby titles. Read more here.
Some diary dates for the week ahead:
Wednesday:
Tewkesbury’s Growth Hub is due to stage another of its free seminars for buinesses, today from 9.30am to 1pm. This one will help you create a 90 day action plan for your start-up business.
Hartpury Digital Innovation Farm is staging a talk about agri-tech - about helping agri-business owners make better use of wireless networks and carry out precision farming techniques. From 12.30pm to 4pm. See Eventbrite for more details.
Thursday:
Inside a Cyber Tech Angel Investment - that’s the name of the event due to take place from 6pm to 8pm at Hub8 MX, Chester Walk, Cheltenham, this evening. Billed as “an engaging conversation between an experienced angel investor and a founder from a company they invested in”. A behind-the-scenes look into an angel deal.
Hartpury Digital Innovation Farm is staging ‘Navigating Change and Business Growth’ today. Billed as an interaction workshop designed to sharpen your skills and prepare your business for innovation and growth. From 4pm to 7pm. See Eventbrite for more details.
Friday:
Gloucester History Festival’s Winter Warmer digital event begins today. Enjoy 50 events broadcast over 25 days all from the comfort of your own home. And you have six weeks to catch up and view them all! Find out more here.
The FSB’s popular virtual networking events for businesses in the Gloucestershire, Bristol & Bath areas will take place from 11am to noon. Find out more here.
* Please do think about supporting us. Everything you read on The Raikes Journal is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People and Randall & Payne, our sponsors Hartpury University and Hartpury College, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you upgrade to paid you’ll be part of this community interest company too. We are dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire, to championing the county, in particular its businesses, charities, education and training providers, and to helping create an even stronger community. If you upgrade to paid you will be able to see past the paywalls often put on our second and third email editions of the week, that lock all our archive after two weeks and lock our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series. You will be able to comment on our stories too. You’ll be helping make this CIC sustainable to deliver more original articles on our county.
You can sign up to receive your two extra editions a week and see past all our paywalls for just £2.30 a week - or £1.80 a week if two or more people sign up at once. Or go all in and become one of our Founding Partners or Founding Members!
£30m from Gloucestershire County Council's pension pot will help tackle housing crisis
Want to see an ethical investment actually changing the lives of hundreds of people? Look no further than Gloucestershire’s biggest employer's pension fund. It’s about to do something remarkable.
By Andrew Merrell.
As attractive as the idea of an ethical investment can be, it can sometimes seem a little distant, elusive even - the benefits intangible - good, but the benefits felt somewhere outside your own community.
Not in the case of a bold move afoot by the pension fund managed by probably Gloucestershire’s biggest employer, which has revealed that £30 million from its pot will be ploughed into helping fight homelessness in the county - and still produce a return for pension holders.
The investment will help provide homes for potentially 750 individuals and families over the lifetime of the fund.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Raikes Journal to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.