Folkestone Enterprise Centre - 5th Anniversary Celebrations
At the lunchtime celebrations on 11 May organised by Basepoint, operators of the Folkestone Enterprise Centre, Peter Hobbs, Chief Executive of Channel Chamber spoke of the Enterprise Centre's success in attracting new businesses to Folkestone during the past five years:
"This has been a fine example of strong and effective local partnership working - with commercial enterprise fuelled by public sector funds.
The story started ten years ago when Shepway District Council came together with Shepway Chamber of Commerce and the local Enterprise Agency. The idea of a brand new Enterprise Centre was borne and we were very fortunate in finding BASEPOINT a company based in Hampshire with a fine record and at that time a handful of successful managed Enterprise Centres.
The local partners managed to attract a £1m subsidy from SEEDA (our regional development agency) to help Basepoint build the new Centre here on Shearway Business Park. At that time Shearway was a barren plot of land and now its tremendously pleasing to see us packed full of businesses from different sectors.
Alongside this development a new ‘one-stop-shop' was created - Shepway Business Centre - to act as an umbrella organisation for the Chamber, the Enterprise Agency and The Education Business Partnership - our other local partner.
SBC was awarded £500,000 over a five-year period to support local businesses and we became long term tenants when Folkestone Enterprise Centre first opened five years ago.
Since then everything has really taken off. We've more than doubled the size of the Chamber. We re-branded ourselves into CHANNEL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE and have developed new successful partnerships in Dover and Thanet - now embracing more than 800 Chamber members!
During the past 5 years we have been awarded over £1m of European funding to help and support our local businesses.
We've developed a range of successful initiatives including the annual B2B show, our very own Business Awards and an exciting incubation service for new businesses wanting their first proper office.
More recently, building on the strength of our original local partnership we've worked with Shepway District Council and local business to create SERP - Shepway's new Economic Regeneration Partnership.
None of this would have been possible without the vision and determination of the original local partnership mentioned earlier."
Source: Your County - the Kent website
