Does The Forum point to the mindset Gloucestershire needs to succeed?
It was meant as encouragement, and with investment needed and the Golden Valley pending, could a major London developer's insight into The Forum signpost the way forward for Gloucestershire?
Dear reader,
Matched in sheer volume of publicity only by the Golden Valley Development, The Forum - the £100m-plus office, retail and leisure complex in Gloucester - has already done something the other scheme has yet to do. It’s been built. And it’s already changing minds about the city.
We wanted to know why a London-based developer like Reef + Partners would put so much energy into a project in an unfashionable West Country city and partner with a local authority to do it. And whether it had all been worth it.
Its answers point to how we need to view ourselves in Gloucestershire if we are to continue to succeed in attracting investment, which brings us back to the Golden Valley Development.
It’s the kind of perspective championed up in Leeds this week by the team from Invest in Gloucestershire and others at the UK Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) - which saw them pitch the county to the UK’s biggest investors and developers. We will publish a story on just how that went very soon.
We also flag a special moment due to take place on Wednesday next week, when a statue will be unveiled in honour of one of Gloucestershire and the UK’s engineering geniuses, Sir George Dowty.
And the Longfield Hospice’s Run the Rainbow event gave us the opportunity to feature it once again as our charity of the week. If you don’t like exercising in public because of the funny colour it makes you go, you don’t have to worry with this event! And it’s all in a very good cause too.
And speaking of weeks, have a great one.
Best regards,
Editor | 07956 926061 | LinkedIn: Andrew Merrell | andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk
Honouring an engineering giant from Gloucestershire
On Wednesday next week, 160 miles northeast of Gloucestershire, a special ceremony will take place unveiling a statue to a legend.
When he arrived in Gloucestershire he was just plain George Dowty, but by the time of his death in 1975 he was Sir George, a pioneering industrialist whose businesses played a key part in the war effort and shaped the county’s economy to this day.
He left behind factories that employed thousands and famously created the landing gear that made the Lancaster Bomber safe – hydraulic and pneumatic landing gear that is the father of all landing gear used on planes to this day.
It was the same hydraulic system that he realised could revolutionise the mining industry worldwide as props, minimising the chance of roof collapse and, likewise, save countless lives.
George Dowty became a legend in his lifetime, but for those men from bomber command who flew across skies heavy with flak, knowing they could touch down safety again on home soil must have felt like a gift every time.
The Lancaster’s previous incarnation, the twin-engine Avro Manchester, was notoriously unreliable with many losing their lives as a result.
Which explains why the statue will be not in Gloucestershire but at the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln in a ceremony led by Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon GCB CBE.
Martin Robins, chairman of the Sir George Dowty Memorial Committee which made possible the statue, will read a tribute at the ceremony.
Robins, who knew and worked with Sir George in Gloucestershire, said: “The statue will be by Lincoln Cathedral, which is a nice touch.
“55,000 people died in action in bomber command during the Second World War. But for those bombers who did make it back, they knew when they saw the cathedral they knew they were home.”
Sir George’s was a ‘rags-to-riches’ story of a boy from Pershore and Worcester Grammar School who opened his first business in 1931 in the backstreets of Cheltenham. That business was to grow into Dowty Hydraulics with associated branches, a workforce of 13,000 and an annual turnover of £100 million. By the time of his death more than 200 patents had been taken out in his name.
Briefing notes…
📖🎊 This evening a special business event will take place at the University of Gloucestershire’s business school at Oxstalls campus. Chief executive of leadership development specialists QuoLux, Dr Stewart Barnes, and co-author Professor Steve Kempster will be talking about and taking questions about their recent book Realising Good Growth: a Practical Guide for Business Leaders. Barnes is the co-founder of a business delivering what has become one of the most transformative series of leadership development courses in the UK with a cohort that includes firms from just about every sector. Expect to hear some of the thinking behind those programmes unpacked tonight. Due to take place from 5pm to 8pm at Oxstalls Campus (GL2 9HW). Email Rachael Ramos at QuoLux™ to find out more.
🏉🍷☀️ Gloucester Rugby sponsor, Laithwaites Wines, has unveiled a £500,000 solar panel fit-out on the roof of its Gloucester Business Park distribution centre. Carried out by Toddington-based Mypower, and operational from April 29, it’s already produced 40,000 units of electricity - the same as ten homes would use in a year - and will produce 750,000 units - enough to power 200 homes. Mypower said business had increase 64 per cent on a month-by-month basis in the last quarter. Mypower expects payback on the investment in three and a half years.
⚽ Tara Warren is the new chief executive officer of Freeman Event Partners, the Gloucester-headquartered firm that supplies food and drink to events including the British Grand Prix. Warren joins after 16 years at West Ham United FC, where she was its executive director. She has also been closely involved in Premier League and Women’s Super League leadership groups.
The Raikes Journal is a community interest company. Everything you read is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People, our sponsors, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
Readers who upgrade to become a paid subscriber become part of this CIC too (from £2.30 a week). It helps make us sustainable, allows you to see past the paywalls, comment on our stories, and know you’re making possible the county’s only editorially-led digital magazine dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire about its businesses, charities, education and training sectors.
Raikes is the only independent website approved to use the BBC’s local Government copy. It recognises Raikes as independent journalism.
Charity of the week: Guaranteed to be this summer’s most colourful day out
Every week we showcase one of the county’s many charities. This week we’re back with the Longfield Community Hospice, which is inviting people of all ages “to celebrate life in full colour” as its Run the Rainbow event returns to Frampton Court Estate on Saturday 4 July. Taking place from 11am to 3pm, the event challenges runners to take on a 5km course containing colour, music, foam, inflatable obstacles and more. All funds raised will go to support people in Gloucestershire with life-limiting conditions, their families and loved ones too. Participants are encouraged to start in their brightest whites before being transformed into human kaleidoscopes as they run, walk or skip their way around the course. Tickets are £15 for adults and £10 for children. A family ticket (two adults and two children) is £45. More here or email events@longfield.org.uk.
Does The Forum point to the mindset Gloucestershire needs to succeed?
It was meant as encouragement, and with investment needed and the Golden Valley pending, could a major London developer’s insight into The Forum signpost the way forward for Gloucestershire?
By Andrew Merrell.
At the same time as many of those present took a picture and posted it on social media announcing that The Forum was ‘officially open’, the major developer that drove the project was giving some interesting feedback.
Peter Langly-Smith had travelled all the way from Reef + Partners’ head office in London specially to help celebrate the opening of the £100m-plus The Forum development the firm had delivered for Gloucester City Council.
That’s 600,000 square feet of mixed-use space; 135,000 to 142,000 square feet of Grade A office space, 43 apartments and a multi-story car park with 398 spaces and more built by lead contractor Kier Construction.
As talk continues in Cheltenham about the pending Golden Valley Development, the investment needed and all it could bring, his feedback on the completion of The Forum points to how it might be achieved.
We had asked him why on earth Reef + Partners went with the project to start with, why it it decided to work with a local authority (as anyone dealing with the Golden Valley Development will have to) in a city where even those who live here cannot help but knock any attempt to change it.
And we wanted to know whether there were any lessons to be learned for a county that so often sees itself as a collection of separate places rather than recognising itself as the sum of its parts.
Langly-Smith, managing director of Reef + Partners, said: “Gloucester is a city not short on telling you what it thinks. We discovered that early on. But once you get through that, there is also a passion. People do really care about their city.
“We don’t see The Forum as just about Gloucester. That’s not how people from outside will see it either.”
Seeing the bigger picture was crucial, he said. The Forum and Gloucester’s success was tied to the rest of the county and vice versa.
“We want the Golden Valley (Development) to succeed too because the better that does, the better The Forum will do. We still have to finish filling this building, and investment like that (the GV Development) will help.”
