First students welcomed to new university campus

As the university sector is battered by the winds of change the University of Gloucestershire sails on. We talk to Clare Marchant about 'change', leadership and a certain flagship development.

Dear reader,

Welcome to Friday’s edition of The Raikes Journal.

Earlier this week we took a look at how a major development going through planning could rival the much trumpeted Golden Valley Development – often referred to as a £1billion scheme – for land beside GCHQ.

This second scheme is based in Stroud District, near Sharpness, and also has a business park at its centre with the door well and truly open to cyber businesses. It would also sit close to other major business-focused schemes at nearby Berkeley – a focus of attention for the Western Gateway Partnership and the nuclear power industry. You can read that story here.

A potential hurdle in the way of the Sharpness Vale proposal is whether the funds will be available to change the nearby motorway junction.

On the subject of motorway junctions, we have news of millions of pounds of investment for Gloucestershire’s M4 junctions below, which bodes well also for the ongoing developments around Ashchurch, near Tewkesbury, and the aforementioned Golden Valley.

And yesterday we tried to live up to our name as a champion of charities in Gloucestershire – there are more than 2,000 of them here – with a full-length feature on county charity ITSA, the impact of its work over the last 20 years, and the crisis it’s facing now – and how you can help. That story is here.

So, to today... a members edition. Which means you can read much of what lies below, but when it comes to the main article – and interview with Dame Clare Marchant about how the University of Gloucestershire’s transformation of the former Debenhams building in Gloucester is coming along, and how those plans have changed – you’ll be met with one of the paywalls that helps make Raikes and what it does sustainable.

If you want a digital magazine that focuses soley on Gloucestershire, is written and edited by a journalist, that doesn’t swamp you in everything that might or might not be a news or might be a press release, then please do think about supporting us and becoming a members too.

We think that in today’s climate where - as one great man recently said - people exist in “information bubbles”, real journalism is more important than ever.

Have a great weekend.

Remember, for every person you refer to The Raikes Journal’s email service you get points towards a free membership allowing you to see beyond our paywalls. Please do sign up (free or otherwise), send the referral link to a friend or colleague, and help us grow.

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 about, then please email me: andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.

NB: We believe Raikes now publishes probably the best-read business-related email ‘newsletter’, pound for pound, in Gloucestershire. Readership is growing and 2025 looks good!

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Remembering a legend

This was a fitting piece of news to break on World Engineering Day. The man who created FTSE250 engineering firm Renishaw plc, a man regarded as an engineering genius, Sir David McMurtry, has been posthumously honoured with the Impact Award for Innovation Excellence at The Engineer’s C2I Awards 2024 (sponsored by Schneider Electric). Jon Excell, editor of The Engineer, described Sir David as ‘a bona fide legend of UK engineering innovation’. The award was judged in November, shortly before the death death of the Gloucestershire-based engineer.

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Your briefing notes…

💷💷💷 Council leaders from Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury have agreed to allocate funding from developments to important transport schemes in the county - to the tune of almost £14 million. Seventy-five per cent of the joint community infrastructure levy (cil) will go torwards six major schemes. The M5 Junction 10 scheme will receive up to £10m and the M5 junction 9 and A46 Aschurch transport scheme will receive £1m. The county’s mass rapid transport scheme will get £1m, an expansion to the Honeybourne Line cycle path in Cheltenham gets £770,424 and the extension of the Cheltenham cycle spine to Bishop’s Cleeve £592,856. The Gloucester to Haresfield Cycle Spine Design has been allocated £400,000. It was also agreed to ringfence £4,587,760 25 per cent of the infrastructure budget and 25 per cent of future CIL income for projects the districts consider of local strategic significance.

🙍 A trader on the Promenade in Cheltenham took to LinkedIn to voice her concern about the presence of market stalls on the iconic thoroughfare. Ruth Hunter, co-owner of Japes in Cheltenham, is not against the markets altogether, just not on the prom and outside rate-paying businesses. The pop-up traders’ tents are “blocking the view and diverting people walking past businesses who are paying high business rates” for four days, argued Hunter. Her post on Linkedin got plenty of response, mostly support, and a meeting with the borough council is planned.

🏨 The team behind the Forum Digital, Gloucester City Council’s £100 million-plus investment scheme to regenerate the King’s quarter area of Gloucester - between the train station and King’s Square - has named the person who will be general manager of Hotel Indigo, one of the anchor businesses moving into The Forum. She is Nadia Fakhredin. Apparently, she comes with a wealth of experience, including time at IHG and Holiday Inn Gloucester-Cheltenham. Indigo will be a 131-room hotel complete with a restaurant, conferencing facilities, and rooftop cocktail bar.

🚜 One to put in the diary for next week? Hartpury Agri-Tech Centre is staging a business innovation and networking event, described as a chance to gather industry insights, meet fellow business owners, enjoy a light lunch and a tour of the adjacent commercial farm, Home Farm robotic dairy. You’ll hear from Dr Guido Drago, who will talk about his agri-tech business, Polygenyn Ltd, and get exclusive access to the centre’s innovative Digital Studio, where you can even test your skills on the clay shooting and tractor simulators.

💷 Plans to build three new care homes in Gloucestershire have received a £57 million funding boost. Gloucestershire County Council cabinet has approved the investment over the next four-and-a-half years to build the new care homes to help address capacity issues. Council chiefs have identified locations for two of the care homes. The former GIS site in Cinderford and the former Elms Care Home site and Stonehouse Library site. A third site for development, which could be in Tewkesbury, is currently being identified. Special thanks to Carmello Garcia, BBC local Government Reporter for this one.

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Food for thought for the weekend…

Friday:

😂 Canadian comedian Tom Stade brings his nationwide tour to Gloucester Guildhall tonight, from 7.30pm.

Saturday:

🛍️ Stroud Farmers Market takes place every Saturday from 9am-2pm. Fifty-plus stalls with wares from 90 different producers.

⚽ Gloucester City AFC play Hungerford Town away at 3pm.

⚽ Forest Green Rovers FC play York City away at 5.30pm.

⚽ Cheltenham Town play Colchester at home at 3pm.

🏉 Ireland play France at 2.15pm in the Six Nations Championship (BBC).

🏉 Scotland play Wales in the 4.45pm in the Six Nations Championship (BBC).

Sunday:

🎶 The Finals of the Gloucestershire Young Musician competition 2025. From 3pm.

🏉 England Rugby play Italy at 3pm in the Six Nations Championship (BBC).

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If you subscribe and invite friends to The Raike Journal you will earn rewards towards complimentary membership (three referrals will get you one month, 10 will get you three months, and 25 will win you six months).

If you upgrade to paid you’ll be part of this CIC 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.

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First students welcomed into new university campus

As the university sector's business model is battered by the winds of change the University of Gloucestershire sails on. We talk to Clare Marchant about ‘change’, leadership and a certain flagship development.

By Andrew Merrell.

“I knew full well what I was taking on when I accepted the job. The board was very transparent,” said Dame Clare Marchant, the University of Gloucestershire’s vice chancellor.

“When they recruited me they made it very clear that it was quite financially challenging and that one of the first challenges would be to cut costs.”

By all accounts a similar conversation has been taking place in many parts of the country at many other universities.

What convinced her to take on the challenge?

It seems the board itself was a big factor.

“They really, really care,” said Marchant, starting to run through the names and calibre of some of those individuals, such as Nicola de Iongh - vice chair, senior independent director of the Gloucestershire Health & Care NHS Foundation Trust, and also a senior independent director at Connexus.

“And it was the staff too. It was clear everybody cares. I think what really made me excited is that if you go into an organisation and it’s perfect, there is not much you can change to make it any better.

“When you know everyone is already onside and wants to make it a success, you are already winning.

“Here we have 1,000 staff and we really, really value them. There is real passion.”

Eighteen months in and word on the street is that they like her leadership style too, which speaks volumes - considering one of the first jobs for anyone looking at costs, as she was, was looking at headcount.

Part of the bigger picture was the small matter of the university’s estate – worth millions of pounds, but costing millions too - some of it state of the art, some of it old and crumbling, some of it in the shape of a high-profile but complicated project that is the conversion of the former Debenhams building in Gloucester into a new city centre campus.

Marchant was good enough to speak to The Raikes Journal about her journey so far, revealing something of her leadership style, and revealing some really exciting news about that new city campus building.