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Enterprise coaching services for budding entrepreneurs and business start ups in the Tees Valley are to benefit from an additional £1.5m investment.
Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council has secured the European Regional Development Fund 2007-13 investment to extend enterprise coaching services across 32 deprived wards, 22 in Redcar & Cleveland and 10 in Darlington, until 2013.
The ERDF investment will assist 1,800 more people with start up ideas and generate hundreds of new business referrals to the Business Link service in the two boroughs over the next three years.
The initiative aims to help increase numbers of new start up businesses in local areas by 300 per annum and ensure that more than 80% of these new start up businesses survive more than 12 months.
It will target people who would not normally consider self employment as a career option and those who need intensive support to fulfil their aims of starting their own business. These include people made redundant, long term unemployed, young mothers and those on incapacity benefit, many of whom have health issues.
The project is part financed by the European Union’s ERDF Competitiveness Programme 2007-13, securing £1.5m ERDF investment through regional development agency One North East. This adds to the £1.46m already invested from the Redcar & Cleveland Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) and £60,000 from Darlington Borough Council.
“The project builds on the enterprise animation and coaching elements of the Redcar & Cleveland Local Enterprise Growth Initiative which has been running in the deprived wards of the borough since 2007 and was due to complete in 2011,” explained Cllr Mark Hannon, Cabinet Member for Economic Development at Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council.
“Current funding had only allowed us to operate in 16 of the 22 Redcar wards until 2011 but the new funding not only extends the project to 2013 bit also adds the Redcar wards of Zetland, West Dyke, Westworth, Longbeck, Hutton and Guisborough to its coverage. And for the first time, we are now including ten of the most deprived wards of Darlington.”
A series of events will run in community venues to raise awareness of enterprise, what it means and how it can offer a sustainable income. Those with business ideas will then be offered one to one coaching with a business specialist to help assess their needs, options for self employment, and the right expertise to help in setting up in business.
Enterprise coaches will help prospective entrepreneurs explore financial requirements, gaps and possible sources of funding until they are ready to access mainstream business support via the Business Link service.
“The need for this service to be expanded across the area has been heightened by the recent developments at Corus and has been identified as a priority within the Tees Valley Industrial Programme,” added One North East chief executive Alan Clarke.
“The project complements the service already delivered under Redcar & Cleveland LEGI and the Tees Valley Package covering Stockton, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool and ensures that individuals have access to Enterprise Coaching across the whole of the Tees Valley.”
The ERDF 2007-13 programme is bringing over £300m into North East England to support innovation, enterprise and business support. It will help create and safeguard 28,000 new jobs, start 3,000 new businesses and increase the region’s productivity by £1.1bn per annum.
The Redcar and Darlington project is supported as part of the Tees Valley Industrial Programme (TVIP), a £60m investment over the next two years from One North East and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). It is to support the area’s industrial transition to low carbon and advanced manufacturing. The two year Tees Valley Industrial Programme will create an estimated 3000 new jobs in the short to medium term and sustain over 10,000 jobs long term.
The Redcar and Darlington project delivers Enterprise Coaching funded as part of Solutions for Business, the Government’s package of publicly funded business support designed to help companies start and grow.
For information on the wide package of support available to regional companies, call Business Link on 0845 600 9006 or visit www.businesslink.gov.uk/northeast
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Media contact:
Tom Willcox
Communications advisor
European Regional Development Fund 2007-13
One North East
0191 229 6805
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