Briefs: £7m funding extension for employment projects; Coventry to go blue ahead of culture year, while Rugby business goes green

Programmes in the Building Better Opportunities initiative are to be extended

More than £7m of funding has been secured for the extension of projects which have already helped 370 long-term unemployed people in Coventry and Warwickshire into work.

Accelerate, Breakthrough and Progress are initiatives that are part of Building Better Opportunities and are funded by the European Social Fund and The National Lottery Community Fund.

Employability partners have joined together to provide participants with access to confidence building, work experience and skills enhancement, including training on IT, literacy, numeracy and enterprise.

The programmes work with people who are not in education, employment or training and so far more than 2500 individuals have been assisted with gaining skills, training and finding work.

Mandy Bygrave, operations manager at CDA and lead on Accelerate, said: “Accelerate, Progress and Breakthrough have managed to achieve what a lot of other previous initiatives have failed to do. We’ve managed to bring together all of the different support organisations so that people can access the exact help they need.

“This is making a massive difference to lots of communities in Coventry and Warwickshire and the good news is we have secured additional funding to keep delivering our projects to thousands of local people.”


Adam Land, general manager at Technoset, with Dr James Bridges,
from Coventry City Council

An engineering business based in Rugby has benefitted from a grant to make their premises more eco-friendly and save them money on bills.

Technoset has received a £47,000 grant provided by the Coventry and Warwickshire Green Business Programme which is partly
funded by the ERDF and is being delivered by Coventry City Council, towards making energy efficiency savings.

The Green Business Grant supported an investment of £70,000 by the company.

The measures have included installing LED energy efficient lighting throughout the factory and offices, and extending the heat ducting between its two factories.

With the improvements, Technoset anticipates to see their energy bills drop by 33% and the organisation is helping to reduce 62 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.

Kevan Kane, managing director of Technoset, said: “We all need to do our bit to reduce our carbon footprint and this support helps Technoset to make our contribution. It is refreshing to see Coventry at the forefront of the Green Programme initiative.”

The manufacturer specialises in the machining of high precision components and assemblies for a range of sectors including aerospace, medical and motorsport.

Dr James Bridges, sustainability consultant at Coventry City Council, said: “Taking a sustainable approach to energy consumption is a change many companies will have to make sooner or later due to increasing energy costs and legislation – and often they need a bit of support to help them.”


Martin Sutherland, chief executive of Coventry City of Culture Trust

Coventry’s historic relationship with the colour blue will be brought to life across 2020 in the build up to the city’s year as UK City of Culture.

Coventry City of Culture Trust has been working with The Weaver’s House and Uncommon Creative Studio to find a distinctive shade of blue – a colour historically linked with the city.

The city’s link with the colour started with Coventry Blue, a dye used in the city’s medieval weaving trade. This shade of blue was unique to Coventry and came from a secret recipe for
the dye including water from the River Sherbourne and the quality and type of woad plant used.

The recipe was never written down so was lost to history, but Coventry’s connection to blue can still be see across the city today, from the city’s football club’s kit through to the blue-ribbon roundabout.

The Trust will paint 366 different locations and objects the same colour, called Moving Blue, as both a growing visual reminder that UK City of Culture is on the horizon.

Martin Sutherland, chief executive of Coventry City of Culture Trust, said: “The colour blue is synonymous with Coventry and, while nobody has ever been able to quite pin down the actual Coventry Blue, we think this project is a great way for people to come together as we head towards 2021.”

The team behind City of Culture expect to announce a partnership with a major paint manufacturer by Spring 2020, so Moving Blue will be available for residents and community groups to use on their own properties later in 2020.

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