Plans revealed for £40m of investment in Gloucestershire

We are about to take you to the future – via a sneak peek at plans to invest millions in Gloucestershire that would supercharge one of the county’s true economic catalysts.

Dear Readers,

We hope you’ve had a great week!

Welcome to a Friday members-only edition of The Raikes Journal. That doesn’t mean if you’re not a member you can’t read anything below, so don’t leave us just yet – but it does mean you won’t be able to read all of our big read story. 

If you didn’t see Monday’s edition you will have missed being introduced to the charity the Ernest Cook Trust, and news it’s giving away grants to schools, which is all part of our regular feature on Gloucestershire’s third sector. And you’ll have missed us tipping our hat to the Pride in Cheltenham festival, as well the Cirencester Business Awards (more of which below). 

Perhaps most importantly you won’t have read our article about a property developer that has put more money into Gloucester than any other, and which is about to do more of the same. You can read that here. It’s part of us lending our support to the Believe in Gloucester Awards, which is backed by the business in question and returning this year thanks to Gloucester BID. 

As for today’s lead story? It is about one of our supporters, one of the businesses that makes the community interest company that is The Raikes Journal possible. And when an operation like this puts together plans to invest £40 million in the county it’s worth taking a closer look at – and worth remembering the ripple effects of that on Gloucestershire PLC too! 

Have a great weekend. 

Please do send us your story ideas to andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk. Or telephone 07956 926061.

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* 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.

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Our chosen charity

The Gloucestershire-based Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum charity was established in 1985 with the mission to “further public enjoyment and knowledge” of Westonbirt, The National Arboretum, and to secure its sustainable future. This week it revealed it has welcomed on board Sarah Bryars and Sam Addadahine. Bryars, a well-known and well-respected expert in PR and communications, and Addadahine, a software engineer, has a background in the telecoms and construction industries. Today, the charity has around 36,000 members and supporters, many of whom are volunteers; all helping to conserve the 600-acre site, and its 15,000 trees and shrubs. The image above is testament to the kind of effect it has on those who visit.

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Your Friday roundup

🏆 After weeks helping with the build-up to this incredible event, we can’t resist one last chance to look at what’s afoot at this year’s Cirencester Business Awards, and how you can still be part of it! This is the Cirencester Chamber of Commerce’s forthcoming annual awards, due to take place at the Royal Agricultural University on Friday 5 July. You can read our latest story on it here – and follow the links through to where you need to be to find out any more too right here.

📈 We’re still paying catch-up with some of the outstanding results of firms that feature on our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire list, sponsored by none other than Randall & Payne. This is the series that tracks the financial fortunes of the biggest county firms by turnover. We’ve written-up one about a specialist manufacturing and engineering firm that has seen turnover leap 77 per cent to £111 million-plus and its order book continue to grow! Read it all here.

🧀🏁 What’s it got to do with business? I guess we could argue it brings people to the county. And it certainly puts it on the map. Other than that, the debate it open. It’s certainly about community. We are talking about Gloucestershire’s famous cheese rolling event - due to take place on Monday (27 May) at the usual spot, the side of Coopers Hill. You can go and watch it for free. In fact, you can take part for free. Good luck either way!

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Plans revealed for £40m of investment in Gloucestershire

We are about to take you to the future – via a sneak peek at plans to invest £40 million in Gloucestershire that would supercharge one of the county’s true economic catalysts. 

By Andrew Merrell

Unless you are prone to reading obscure blogs about the future of education in the UK you will probably not have read an article by respected accountants EY mapping out how the university sector needs to transform to survive. 

Author Catherine Friday talks about a ‘future-back’ approach, challenging universities to look to where they need to be by imagining what the world will be like, and to work back - plotting a route to that destination. 

The article (Are universities of the past still the future?), talks about a future in which education and learning may well be affordable for all, where digital is integral, where students log in and out from anywhere in the world at any time - of their career or life - where technology, research, industry and commerce are core components and where universities are the conduits for a dynamic economy. 

Take a short drive north from Gloucester on the A417, over the hill at Maisemore, and as you drop down towards Hartpury village you’ll catch a glimpse of where one such road map to the future is already being drawn up - right there, on the left, all green and lovely. And Raikes has had a sneak peep at it.

The ‘institution’, that also looks very much like a farm (because it is, as well as a sporting, equestrian and academic centre of excellence) is Hartpury University and Hartpury College - recently named by Research England as in the top 20 per cent of UK universities as having the most ‘benefit on the economy and society’.  

And if you follow the spirit of the EY article, you might say Hartpury has already done its crystal ball gazing - with the result being serious plans to invest a cool £39.5 million plus to develop a series of projects to take its education and learning experience, and its research and development potential, to another level. 

It makes for exciting reading, but as you will see – as exciting as it is, it is also about making sure it can serve our economy, and about planning for its own survival in a sector threatened by changing attitudes towards traditional university degrees, one where those who underinvest now will pay the price – perhaps the ultimate price - in that same near future.