As the city mourns the demise of Jessops and HMV, there’s
positive news on the horizon… thank goodness!
The City Deal
This week our city Council submits an application to the
government for a so-called ‘City Deal’. This means they’re making solid,
actionable proposals about how they’d like to do things differently, and detailing
exactly what needs to be done to make it happen.
With a bit of luck the project will give Brighton &
Hove Council the tools and special powers it needs to drive healthier local
economic growth as well as access projects and initiatives to boost our
money-generating potential.
It should also bring about a revolutionary change by
allowing the council to work across administrative boundaries, with the adjoining
Adur and Lewes districts, to develop new environmental industries and turn our
city into a recognised eco-hub. Which will help create new graduate-level jobs
for some of our 7,000 graduates. And most exciting of all, they’re proposing a new
eco-tech business centre at Toads Hole Valley, another job-generating,
city-changing initiative.
All this good stuff has been inspired by our vibrant and
hugely successful creative, digital and information technology sector. Which
remains the star in Brighton & Hove’s economic firmament.
This is great news when many analysts think the first
quarter of 2013 is set to be a dismal one, with negative growth in the UK
economy as a whole. Britain looks set to lose our coveted AAA credit rating and
all three of the top credit rating agencies have already put the country on
what they call a ‘negative outlook’, which usually precedes a downgrade.
Wired Sussex takes
the bit between their digital teeth
At the same time, Wired Sussex and the Council have
secured £650,000 funding to support the city’s creative industries as part of a
£6.4m umbrella project, Recreate.
This’ll result in a new learning and support centre for start-ups and existing
businesses in the creative and tech sectors, called Fusebox, sited at New England House.
The theory is that smaller digital business often operate
in a fast-changing environment and, unlike big businesses in relatively stable
sectors, they need an entirely different kind of support. The new initiative
will host and help start-ups and freelancers in the sector, provide top class training
and a dedicated venue for digital communities and groups. It’ll focus on highly
creative ‘disruptive’ business thinking and will take inspiration from unusual,
off-piste sources in line with the sector’s unique Zeitgeist.
The Recreate
project as a whole is tasked with creating new work, exhibition, studio and
learning spaces for creative entrepreneurs in the arts, creative and digital
industries, with empty spaces in the city brought back to commercial life via a
clever brokerage scheme. And a pop up
shop scheme will see empty retail and other premises put to good use
without all the usual bureaucracy.
If that all sounds good, it is. Making the city a hub for
the green sector plays on our existing excellent environmental credentials and
opens up a whole new world of opportunity. Our already-thriving digital and
creative sector will get stronger. And both will drive new jobs and
opportunities for small businesses, new and existing. If you were feeling a bit
gloomy, plaster a smile on your face and go do business… things in our city are
on the up!
