‘A huge opportunity’ for Gloucestershire
Possibly the biggest single investment in the Forest of Dean in recent times looks set to go ahead, tipped to bring hundreds of jobs, visitors and have ripple effects across the district.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to our Monday edition.
With best intentions that hopefully won’t jinx its progress through the district council on Tuesday 13 August, we take a look at plans to invest £50 million-plus in Gloucestershire to develop a former industrial site with a scheme that includes a restaurant with a covered balcony overlooking the Forest of Dean.
It all promises to be very exciting, but its journey to this stage has not been easy. However, everyone seems confident that this time the man behind the scheme will be given the go-ahead, and we hear from possibly the Forest of Dean’s best-know businessman, Enill Ricketts, about why it is so important.
We’ve also got our weekly introduction to one of the county’s many charities (there are more than 2,000 of them apparently), a mini feature we usually try and tie in with some existing connection to the business community, be that fundraising, mentoring, volunteering.
And then there are our ‘briefing notes’, the succinct round up of stories, social media posts and other stuff that has caught our eye. Some of these featured on Friday’s members only edition for our paying subscribers.
Anyway, we hope there is something in the mix to keep you interested. Please do let us know about anything you would like us to cover. That might just be an idea, a topic, an issue, something you’ve heard that you want investigated. We’d love to hear from you.
Have a great week.
If you have a story idea, want to know more or are interested in commercial opportunities please email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk or telephone 07956 926061.
Our weekly charity: Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals Charity
Cancer patients undergoing treatment in Gloucestershire will be the direct beneficiaries of a £33,000 donation by a Cheltenham restaurant. Customers and staff at Mowgli Street Food in the town’s Brewery Quarter amassed the money to allow the Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals Charity to buy a new scalp cooling machine. Patients will be able to wear a cold cap during treatment sessions such as chemotherapy to limit blood flow to the head, a method that can prevent drugs from reaching the hair and causing hair loss. Catherine Harker, Gloucestershire Hospitals’ matron of oncology, haematology and immunology, said: “It doesn't cure cancer or stop other treatment side effects, but it does help patients to go about their daily lives without feeling constantly reminded of their illness.” More than 5,000 people have chemotherapy and other treatments each year in the Gloucestershire Oncology Centre.
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Your briefing notes
💷 County accountancy firm McGills has been bought by South West-based Monahans. It means McGills offices in Cirencester, Fairford and across the border into Malmesbury now come under the wing of its new Swindon-headquartered owner. Apparently McGills partners Simon Nuttall, Sharla Dandy and Helen Jones will become partners at Monahans, with Nuttall saying he is “delighted to be joining forces”.
💷 A Gloucestershire firm has added a cool £14.5 million to its group turnover. Moreton Valence-based Pump Supplies, which has a turnover of more than £30 million in its own right, is one of the largest suppliers of electric submersible water pumps in the UK operating through five depots in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It has bought Surrey-based PDAS, a specialist in maintenance and monitoring of waste water pumping stations. In its last financial year Pump Supplies increased its staff numbers from 76 to 83. The deal adds another 63 to the group’s total.
💷 Earnz Plc, headed by Gloucestershire businessman Bob Holt, was on the acquisition trail last week. The shell company created to invest in firms in the energy services and net zero sectors, and which earlier this year raised £4 million to enable it to do so, announced two acquisitions. Holt, who famously bought Gloucester-based Mears Group for £50,000 and grew it into a firm with an order book of £1 billion, announced the latest deals on LinkedIn - they being Cosgrove & Drew in Bristol and South West Heating Services in Plymouth, as well as the promise of more ‘capital raising’ to come.
💷 A Gloucestershire firm that specialises in handling digital transactions for local authorities has been taken over in a £13 million deal. GovTech, based in Cirencester, has become part of Bedford–based software and automation business Netcall. The Cotswolds company, which handles an estimated 30 million transactions annually from 50 local authorities, including Bristol, Leeds and Edinburgh city councils, will remain in Cirencester and its 39 staff, including the founders, will stay with the business too.
💷 A Tewkesbury business that specialises in green roofing (think turf, flowers and plants rather than tiles) as well as the flowing vertical garden walls that cover some buildings, has been sold in a deal said to be worth £2.5 million. Sky Garden, which created the green roof you will have seen if you have ever cast your eye over the award-winning Gloucester Services on the M5, has been bought by FTSE 250 group Genuit.
📈 Nimesh Patel, the group chief executive of major Gloucestershire employer and world-wide engineering giant Spirax Sarco, said he expected ‘stronger growth’ for the business in the second half of the year after revealing its results for the first half of its financial year. They were, he said, ‘slightly below its expectations’. Revenue for the six months to 30 June this year was £827 million, down three per cent on 2023 when it was £850.8 million.
🎤 It’s being blamed on the cost-of-living crisis, but Witcombe Festival has announced a shock last minute withdrawal from this summer calendar. Even though it was reported that the event’s website was taking booking as late as early this week, organisers have now confirmed the cancellation of the event, which took place at the foot of the famous cheese rolling hill near Gloucester. A statement on its website blamed the cost of living crisis, adding that 53 such gatherings have cancelled this year. Full refunds are expected to be given within 14 days.
🏇 Ian Renton’s successor at chief executive officer of The Jockey Club-owned Cheltenham Racecourse has been announced. Renton will remain in an advisory role for a period to ensure a smooth transition ahead of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival, during which time his replacement, Guy Lavender, will be settling in. Lavender is currently chief executive and secretary of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which owns the Lord’s cricket ground in London, and served for 18 years in the Parachute Regiment.
🏗️ A plan for what is billed as a £55 million development to build 147 houses and apartments on the site of North Place car park in Chelteham has been recommended for approval. The 75 homes and four-storey apartment block on the site just behind the Brewery Quarter include a commitment to provide 20 per cent affordable housing on-site, a contribution of more than £1 million towards upgrades towards local education, libraries and the Chilterns Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation.
‘A huge opportunity’ for Gloucestershire
Possibly the biggest single investment in the Forest of Dean in recent times looks about to go ahead, tipped to bring hundreds of jobs, visitors and have ripple effects across the district.
It is something of a triumph of one man’s determination that tomorrow night Richard Cook may well finally be able to celebrate a long battle to invest £50 million-plus into the Forest of Dean.
If ever the current Government, with its talk of planning reforms and ‘getting Britain building’, needed an example of how strong-willed you have to be to deliver exciting investment plans then Richard Cook could be its poster boy.
The businessman famously started what to some might still see as a relatively modest business, the Severn & Wye Smokery beside the A48 at Chaxhill - purveyor of fine fish, food and home of The Restaurant - in 1989.
But Cook’s empire actually stretches up to Grimsby and south to Salisbury, it made the ‘Forest of Dean’ a sought-after brand, champions environmental issues on the Severn and Wye and today turns over in excess of £50 million and has an estimated 240 staff.
And after being awarded custodianship of the historic Lydney Harbour by the Environment Agency in 2016 he has been working towards consolidating all those business operations onto the adjacent 11.81 hectare Pine End Works site, which once upon a time was a Second World War aircraft factory.
Although the harbour is not part of the development, Cook is well aware of the potential knock-on effect of his scheme and has described the harbour, recognised as a port since the reign of Henry II, as a “hidden gem”.
If they do go ahead his plans will see a 180-plus seater restaurant with covered balcony, a cafe, visitor centre, new pedestrian and cycling access, buildings to house eel pools (with some bred for consumption some for restocking) accommodation for staff, parking for HGVs and more.
It has not been an easy journey to date.
First with Brexit, then the pandemic, the turmoil of the last Government, interest rates and the aforementioned story of threading a camel through the eye of a needle that can be the planning process.
Permission was actually granted in April 2021 subject to a 106 agreement, which among other things asked for £10,000 for a transport plan, only for a legal challenge to immediately unsure.
It was ‘battle’ that did not last long – with the district council advised it would not be able to defend its seven points of objection in full – and on July 2021 the application was remitted to the council to reconsider. All of which has delayed the process until tomorrow night, when it now looks very much like Cook will get the news he seeks.
And for some in the Forest of Dean the thumbs up from the district council’s development management committee will be a significant moment forward for what its champions feel is an area of Gloucestershire often overlooked by county decisionmakers.
“My take is we should get building this. There should not be any barriers to opportunity and investment like this. We all remember Lydney Harbour as it was. Now it has a real chance for regeneration.
“And development drives change in the community. That can only be a positive thing,” said Neill Ricketts, chairman of the Forest of Dean Economic Partnership and a man not unfamiliar with moving a business into the district, tackling planning.
He famously started advanced engineering firm Versarien, taking it to the Stock Market and raising considerable funds in the process, before relocating it from Cheltenham to Longhope in the Forest.
“You have to take your hat off to Richard Cook for staying with this. It is not easy to get these projects through.
“The (previous) Government has not made it easy and it can be extremely expensive and difficult to get a successful outcome. But good developments can help deliver successful, prosperous communities.
“A lot of people think it is the Government’s job to fix everything, but I think its job is to facilitate change and let those people who can make it happen get on with it.
“As for the Forest Economic Partnership, it is there to support businesses. We have many great businesses in the Forest of Dean and we are there to help give them a voice.
“One of the challenges I had when I was part of GFirst LEP was that while it was a very good voice for Gloucestershire, sometimes the challenges are more local than that. And when I had a chance to joining the FEP I saw an opportunity.”
That point about investment leading to employment opportunities remains close to his own heart. He remains committed to the Forest of Dean, but is currently chairman of Gas Sensing Solutions Ltd - a business based in Glasgow!
“One of the problems for people working in the Forest of Dean is they have to travel to work. There are few opportunities to work here, and that is something we need to focus on trying to fix,” he said, meaning he hoped Cook’s investment would help achieve that.
Down by the harbour some businesses can’t wait for the development.
There are the obvious businesses you would expect to be excited by an increase in footfall, from Hips Cafe on the Harbourside itself to the Lydney Harbour Cafe on Lydney Industrial Estate. The latter run by Trudie Clarke.
“I think it will be fantastic – good for the area, good for Lydney and good for the Forest. It is just a shame it has taken so many years.
“We would expect to attract some new customers when the builders get on site to start work. We do a really good fried breakfast - and they tend to like that,” said Clarke, whose cafe opens from 8.30am to 2pm weekdays and may extend that to Saturday too.
It is understood there would be an 80-metre by 124-metre building containing the eel farm and cafe (88 covers) on the ground floor, with a restaurant (194 covers) on the first floor featuring a covered balcony.
Accommodation would include three three-bed dwelling houses, eight one-bed apartments, four two-bed apartments and 18 shared units of accommodation for seasonal staff. There would also be accommodation for the night shift workers within the eel farm.
The submitted plans include four phases of development that is expected to take “several years to complete”.
The initial phase being the groundworks, advance planting, phase one the building of the fish processing plant, vehicular access, car parking, generator substation, water treatment lagoons and residential accommodation, phase two the eel farm, restaurant and visitor centre, storage building and GHV amenity block, and phase three being the open landscaped event space, market hall building and remainder of visitor car parking.
Visit Friends of Purton Hulks to see more.