Nottingham 2023 chiefs target 150 new businesses for the city
The leaders of the Nottingham 2023 bid want to bring 150 new businesses to the city if they are successful in landing the European Capital of Culture title.
In documents seen by TheBusinessDesk.com, Nottingham City Council says it will “define a compelling narrative” for the city, and “join up business support in order to “deliver a significant increase” in new creative business start-ups in the run-up to and the European Capital of Culture year.
The document states: “In Nottingham we expect to see a number of new businesses being attracted into the city. Hull (UK City of Culture) has already seen 43 new small and medium enterprise businesses starting up this year.
“Our target for Nottingham over the development period would be a minimum of 150 new businesses”.
The Council also estimates that, if successful in its bid, its visitor economy would increase by 25% during 2023, adding £180m to the local economy.
Brendan Moffett
Brendan Moffett, chief executive of Marketing NG, told TheBusinessDesk: “We have based this figure on information gathered from meetings held with Hull, currently the UK City of Culture for 2017 and the business start-ups attracted to the city, which they have attributed to their UK City of Culture.
“We also looked at a range of other European cities who have hosted the European Capital of Culture title to see the impact that this had for them around business regeneration and economic impact.
“Once shortlisted there will be a programme strand looking at how we will encourage new businesses to the city.
“It is envisaged that this will be a mixture of new SME creative businesses and other retail/visitor/leisure/science businesses who see the advantages both in terms of the availability of employable skilled labour and also appreciate the liveability standards in the city as opportunities for setting up their businesses in Nottingham.
“We are already working alongside the two universities, Marketing NG, the Midlands Engine, D2N2, Nottingham BID and the Creative Quarter to seek ways by which we can use the designation to further existing business attraction into Nottingham.”
Last Friday, those behind the bid for Nottingham 2023, Nottingham’s Strategic Cultural Partnership, with support provided by Nottingham City Council, the University of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University and Marketing NG, unveiled it’s ‘Breaking the Frame’ concept for the bid, based on how the city will use its Robin Hood spirit to empower people to take culture back into their own hands. It will be submitted to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport on 27 October 2017.
