Liverpool City Region: Encouraging more businesses is vital

A KEY priority for the future prospects of the Liverpool City Region’s economy is to encourage and nurture small business growth.

The city, which is around 18,000 businesses short of the national average, has made and continues to promote enterprise, but many feel more needs to be done to create a better ecosystem for small and start-up businesses to thrive.

TheBusinessDesk.com’s Liverpool City Region supplement in association with Hill Dickinson, Santander, Baker Tilly and the North West Fund, features interviews with key professionals and public and private sector leaders driving the growth agenda. Click here to download our 28-page supplement.

Rob Aitken, partner at Baker Tilly in Liverpool believes the tough job market for new graduates could be an opportunity to boost start-up business rates, but only if such a brave career option is seen as more attractive.

Liverpool-born business leader Ciff Maylor, chief executive of the North West Fund, agrees red tape is a real disincentive to business growth.

He says: “There is no doubt we have a high shortage of businesses – it is hard to untie them from red tape, particularly in a city where people don’t like the administrative burden.”

Mr Maylor, whose organisation is targeted at backing and also attracting dynamic small businesses to Merseyside in particular, as well as the wider region, believes the Government should address the VAT registration threshold to boost enterprise.

He explains: “If you are competing with another business that is not VAT registered, they already have a 20% price advantage over you.  I think northern people and Liverpudlians recognise that if you start employing people it becomes difficult to argue that you have not exceeded the current low VAT registration levels. This discourages the very small businesses from employing people and becomes a barrier to growth.”

Mr Maylor says the city council and its economic development arm, Liverpool Vision, should focus resources on home-grown talent, rather than on wooing major inward investments in the hope a major corporate will create jobs.

“The golden nugget of attracting a major player is not where I would put my efforts. They are few and far between – it is about encouraging young graduates as a great place to live and stay.”