The battle to give business a voice in Gloucestershire has begun
When the voice of business for Gloucestershire, GFirst LEP, ceased at the end of March some wondered ‘who would speak up now?’. Some, like Cheltenham Chamber of Commerce, decided to act.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the second edition of The Raikes Journal of the week. We deliberated over making this a members’ only edition, afterall - it is our members who are key to making what we do possible, but have decided to keep the paywall off.
Why? We think the main story is worth sharing. We hope it speaks a little about where Gloucestershire is on its post GFirst LEP journey - that is after the powerful, widely respected and successful business-led group was silenced by Government.
The ripples of the local enterprise partnership’s work impacted almost every sector in the county - from construction to cyber, from education to agriculture, tourism to food. The point being now the LEP as we all knew it is gone, if we lose that unity, a seat at the big tables inside and outside the county, how difficult will it be to get it back?
We hope the article provides some interesting food for thought, as well as shows you how a certain chamber of commerce is leading the way.
Got a story idea? Please send it to andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk. Or telephone 07956 926061.
Your Thursday briefing notes
🏊🏼♂️ Rachel Roberts (picture above post swim) has just announced she is to take a break from swimming for a while. Why is that news? The tax assistant manager, who works for one of The Raikes Journal’s Founding Partners, Randall & Payne, has just completed the equivalent of crossing the English Channel - that’s 1,500 lengths of a 25m swimming pool (against a target of 1,352), all in aid of Teckels Animal Sanctuaries. The Whitminster-based charity looks after dogs and cats and finds them forever homes, and is the firm of accountants’ charity of the year. Roberts clocked just over 330 lengths a week around her working day to reach her goal, supported by colleagues including Adam, Alison, Ethan, Mel, Rob, and Ryan, who swam the equivalent of the return leg and more (from France back to the UK) between them too (3,182 lengths combined) over the month! Visit her GoFundMe page here.
🚛 There is another Top 100 story to catch up on in our Reports & Deals channel, sponsored by Randall & Payne. The channel is home to the series of stories which follows the fortunes of the county’s biggest firms by turnover. You’ll have to click through to read the latest addition, but we can tell you it shows that manufacturing – in this case of components for major vehicle marques – is still thriving in Gloucestershire and the firm, a barometer for how its sector is faring world-wide, is doing pretty well indeed with turnover above half a billion pounds and rising. Read more here.
📚 More news from another of our Founding Partners, QuoLux. The leadership development specialist has connections into more county firms than you can probably name - and that’s because it’s helped many of their senior managers develop their leadership skills through its programmes. As they undertake the likes of QuoLux’s LEAD programme they benefit from masterclasses from experts in all things business. Most recently it was Professor Malcolm McDonald – a world authority on strategic planning and marketing. You can get a flavour for what the delegates enjoyed first hand because McDonald produced a blog about writing effective business plans (click here). And by way of a follow-up, the considerable and growing library of knowledge on QuoLux’s website now also contains a blog on the Marketing Planning Process, by Niels Kjær (click here).
🏆 The believe in Gloucester Awards are back for 2024, and entries are “coming in thick and fast” according to the organisers, they being Gloucester BID. The BID, which represents businesses across the city centre and exists to champion them and the city, has picked up the mantle of running the awards, supported by headline sponsors Gloucester Quays and WSP Solicitors The event will see businesses and organisations from across wider Gloucester celebrated in 15 awards from Ambassador of the Year Business of the Year, from Best Customer Service to best Retail of the Year. Nominations are open until May 31st. Category winners will then be decided by a public vote with the awards ceremony on November 20th. Find out more here.
📢 We’ve just published a first-person piece by Business West’s director for Gloucestershire, Ian Mean, which also ties in nicely with our main story below. Mean voices his frustration at the lack of joined-up representation for the region over the years, resulting in a sense that it had been consistently overlooked by successive Governments. As Gloucestershire looks for a new voice to fill the vacuum left by the demise of its powerful business-led group, GFirst LEP, work has been afoot that could place the county into a potentially influential new group representing the West. You can read more here and in our main story directly below.
* 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 all our wonderful paying subscribers. If you upgrade to paid too, you’ll be able to see beyond the paywalls we place on many of our second and third email editions of the week and that lock our archive after two weeks. You will be able to view our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series, comment on our stories and you’ll be helping to make possible this community interest company dedicated to supporting the county, its businesses, charities and education and training providers — all for just £2.30 per week!! For commercial opportunities visit our About us page or email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
The battle to give business a voice in Gloucestershire has begun
When the voice of business for Gloucestershire, GFirst LEP, ceased at the end of March some wondered ‘who would speak up for them now now?’. Some, like Cheltenham Chamber of Commerce, decided to act.
By Andrew Merrell
In what could be seen as the beginning of a new era, change has been afoot at Cheltenham Chamber of Commerce, change that coincides with a sense there is a need to step up in this post GFirst LEP era.
After 13 years taking plans put together by the Gloucestershire business community to London and returning with more than £113 million to invest in the county, the lights at the local enterprise partnership were turned off by Downing Street at the end of March.
It is not that GFirst has entirely vanished - the local enterprise partnership was absorbed into Gloucestershire County Council with a new economic strategy expected to emerge from a new-look team this summer. Some have expressed their concerns at how the independence that made the old LEP so potent could survive such a move.
It is no coincidence that Cheltenham Chamber of Commerce chose this time to put its own house in order, to ensure the town’s business community still has a voice – inside the borough, at county level and in Government.
“We have chatted to Business West,” said Sarah Cook, who became chamber’s deputy chief executive officer in April, and along with its new projects manager, Lindsey Holland, and others, has been at the coalface restructuring the 122-year-old business group.
“Not every chamber is a member of Business West, but we think it is worth exploring. We want to keep our independence and focus on Cheltenham, but we want to have a voice around the table in London too and Business West has this.”
Business West being the Bristol-headquartered umbrella body representing scores of chambers across the region and able to lobby Government on their behalf, but only if the chamber is affiliated with it.
Raikes happen to know that informal conversations have also take place between Gloucester and Cirencester chambers too with a view to working together, forging closer ties – or going even further.
Those discussions are believed to have explored the potential influence a more united force could achieve, asking whether the county’s business community would be better off together and better off heard as one voice.
Ian Mean, director of Business West in Gloucestershire, and the former vice chairman of GFirst LEP, said: “Cheltenham chamber is looking to become affiliated with us. It is a very strong chamber already, so is Cirencester.
“The fact is the LEP has disappeared. But very shortly we will get an announcement about a new economic growth board from the county council and they will send out invitations for people to express their interest to be on that board.
“I am enthusiastic about it all, but it is true – we don’t know yet whether it will have the influence it had before. The biggest thing is the money.”
And when he says money, he means the depleted pot available from central Government and elsewhere – funds the county needs to be able to fight for to win, and to do that it needs to be united to be big enough and loud enough to be heard.
Mean believes, as do others, that as successful as GFirst LEP was, the county and the whole of the South West have been ignored by central Government and Gloucestershire needs to see itself as part of the region as a whole in order to be heard at all.
On a regional level, moves are already afoot too, aside from the Western Gateway, the group wheeled on stage at the LEP’s farewell concert at the University of Gloucestershire’s Business School to try to give some hope, there is a new kid on the block.
“Business West has just announced the formation of the Futures West Foundation for Sustainable and Inclusive Economic growth,” said Mean.
“It will work with some of the region’s most important businesses and employment sectors to establish and promote a new regional economic narrative with an evidence base and a work programme.”
You can read more about that here, but back to the micro-level, a voice being heard at a local authority level, county council level, and able to influence on a wider scale is what the chamber sees as its goal.
And its work so far shows just how much effort and good will is needed to make change, but also what can be achieved.
Whether Gloucester Chamber of Commerce becomes a close ally to Cheltenham in any formal sense remains to be seen.
The city chamber is still in the early stages of rebuilding after complete collapse – perhaps because the kind of work Cook and Holland have been charged with was never done down the other end of the Golden Valley.
Demand for a chamber is there in the city - a voice of the business community to accompany its BID (Business Improvement District) - and word is out too about what Cheltenham is doing.
At least one Gloucester firm, not wanting to wait for its own chamber to be reborn, has already travelled down the Golden Valley to inquire about joining the spa town’s organisation instead. It is understood to have left with the offer of a seat around the table.
As for Cirencester, under the leadership of outward looking president, Adam Vines, the Cotswold town’s chamber is thriving and due to stage its third business awards this summer. But it is not adverse to some partnership working with its near neighbour and the benefits of that have already been felt.
“We held an event recently with Cirencester chamber at Rencombe College. Seventy seven people turned up. It was a cross-border networking event. We also met people from Worcester,” said Cook.
“Such gatherings help our members get to know different places, different sectors, and create new connections. There was a real buzz in the room.
“That is an example of how open-minded we are to do different things. We are non-territorial. Collaboration is a big challenge that we are managing.”
In Holland and Cook, Michael Ratcliffe, the long-standing guardian of the Cheltenham chamber, spotted two individuals who could make the changes he knew were necessary – and was brave enough to set them running and stand back.
“Sarah is younger than me, she has energy and plenty of new ideas. And she has assembled a good team around her now,” said Ratcliffe, who led the chamber for 20 years.
“I think the decision to get rid of the LEPs was silly. They worked well because they were independent, and they got people working together to get things done.
“Local authorities have been told they need to consult more with businesses. I think chambers are more important than ever to keep that voice of he business community heard.
“And you have to remember, people who get involved in chambers of trade are not paid. They get involved because they care about their communities.”
Has it been easy handling a period of change at a chamber some members had been in for a long time and felt comfortable with. Perhaps too comfortable?
“I think you get to where you want to go by bringing people with you,” said Cook, diplomatically.
Raikes happens to know that change has not been for everyone, with one or two members opting to leave when the new broom came in. But we also know some of those who took flight also returned when they better understood what was afoot and the benefits.
The initial pain that all change brings, and that the chamber may have felt, seems to be over and its power base – in a town which also has a Business Improvement District (Cheltenham BID – body representing town centre businesses whose fee generates sizeable spending power in the town) - re-establishing.
“The management team is fluctuating. It will reduce in size. I think you have to change slightly. The executive should be six to eight people,” said Cook.
That team recently announced Steven Murray (pictured above receiving his chains of office from Sarah Cook), head of IP and tech disputes at legal firm HCR as the new president of the Cheltenham Chamber of Commerce.
And the inquiry from the large Gloucester firm about Cheltenham’s chamber was because it liked what it saw and understood the value in a united networking group that gets things done.
What of the impact outside that senior team? How big is the membership now, and are those numbers getting smaller or is the new-look organisation already beginning to grow? That’s possibly a better test of how the new-look chamber if being received.
“I think membership is sitting at more than 200 to 215. There has been a lot of change since Covid too, with some businesses going out of business and some merging, but we recently signed up 12 new members and have two more joining,” said Holland.
When GFirst LEP signed off it was able to run through a list of incredible projects it made happen, but for many its legacy also included another significant achievement – getting the county to embrace partnership working and work together, with one voice.
Those who fear that achievement is worth protecting may well be cheered by what is afoot in Cheltenham.