If the UK's economy is shrinking, why are these businesses growing?
Another disappointing report on the UK economy has just been published. Why is it then that a group of businesses with a Gloucestershire connection are achieving an average growth rate off the charts?
Dear reader,
As we prepare to sign off for the Christmas period and the end of 2025 we leave you with what we hope are some positive vibes in the main story below.
While it may seem impossible for UK plc to achieve growth currently, that’s not strictly true. Many businesses are doing just that, and the formula to help them make it happen can be found here in Gloucestershire.
If you want to look back over the year gone, you can find our round-up of the year’s best stories - our most-read editions - pinned to our home page here. It’s a feature edition that contains numerous links leading you off to ever more to read. Just in case you get bored over Christmas!
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Have a great Christmas period and a very, very happy New Year.
Until 2026.
Andrew Merrell (editor).
Your last Briefing notes of 2025!
🛬 Questions over airport sale amid fears deal is in trouble: It’s not been an easy ride so far for the two local authorities trying to sell Gloucestershire Airport, and now it looks like there are growing question marks over the deal.
🍻 New Cheltenham Taproom To Offer Free Pint to the First 100 Customers: Free beer greeted customers at the opening of a new Cheltenham taproom in one of the town’s historic buildings.
🏗️🎉 Housing association wins award for helping protect survivors of domestic abuse: Gloucester City Homes has revealed it received the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance Gold Accreditation for excellence in protecting survivors’ rights on On International Human Rights Day 2025.
⏰ Public taken for ‘fools’ amid questions over when council first knew of bankruptcy risk: As the full extent of Gloucester City Council’s embarrassing financial position emerges questions are arising over how long the local authority leaders have been aware of the crisis.
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If the UK’s economy is shrinking, why are these businesses growing?
More disappointing reports on the UK economy have just been published. Why is it then that a group of businesses with a Gloucestershire connection are achieving an average growth rate off the charts?
By Andrew Merrell
Apparently two-thirds of UK companies do not have a business plan, most don’t invest in training, 90 per cent of our workforce are disengaged and our productivity is poor.
As if that’s not a gloomy enough thought, on Friday (12 December) the Office of National Statistics told us the UK economy had unexpectedly shrunk (0.1 per cent in October).
And then this week started (commencing 16 December) with news that the rate of unemployment had risen to a four-year high of 5.1 per cent in the three months to October.
For a country whose current mantra is all about economic growth, it doesn’t read well.
And yet a week ago, just two days before the ONS announcement, a private gathering of 100 business leaders took place at a Gloucestershire hotel, revealing a much larger group of companies that on average are enjoying extraordinary growth and confident it will continue too.
All are signed-up members of the leadership development programmes of Gloucestershire-based QuoLux and are using what they learn to challenge themselves to change. And that, it seems, is changing the fortunes of their organisations.
The invitation-only get-together at the Chase Hotel was Quolux’s end-of-year masterclass. The event opened with the launch of a book, Realising Good Growth, co-authored by the company’s chief executive, spelling out the thinking the many organisations it works with are using to achieve just that.
Its cohort now numbers more than 1,000, with figures showing those businesses and organisations have, on average, enjoyed increases in sales of (up 42 per cent), in productivity (up 47 per cent), employee growth (up 19 per cent) and profitability (up 97 per cent).
That apparently amounts to a 2,000 per cent (yes, 2,000) return on investment for participants of the Barnwood-based business’s programmes.
Despite its track record it is a counterculture that has remained on the blindside of policy makers and the powers that be. Or has it?
