Business leaders secure Rural Growth Network pilot for Warwickshire

WARWICKSHIRE will be a major beneficiary of a new rural jobs drive announced yesterday by environment secretary Caroline Spelman.

More than 3,000 jobs and 700 businesses are expected to be created nationally by a new £15m project to support rural businesses and boost the rural economy.

Five pilot Rural Growth Networks – including Coventry and Warwickshire – will be set up to help businesses in rural areas break down barriers to economic growth, such as a shortage of work premises, slow internet connection and fragmented business networks.

Around 500 new jobs could be created in the rural parts of Warwickshire from this initiative, it is estimated.

A new Rural Innovation and Technology Centre will be established at Stoneleigh and enterprise centres will be set up at Shipston-on-Stour and Atherstone, which will offer rural-friendly enterprise support.

The Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has been actively involved in bidding to bring the project to the area and will now help to showcase low carbon and environmental technologies to encourage their adoption by rural businesses. 

As part of the pilot Rural Growth Network, particular emphasis will also be placed on overcoming barriers to enterprise frequently faced by women-led rural businesses.

Denys Shortt, chair of the LEP, said: “This is fantastic news for Coventry and Warwickshire and truly shows the strength of the commitment and work that has been brought together under the Local Enterprise Partnership. Partners have worked extremely hard on this project.”

Louise Bennett, chief executive of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce and author of the bid, said: “This is a real recognition by the Government that businesses in rural areas do face some barriers to enterprise and growth that this work will seek to tackle.

“The focus of the Warwickshire Rural Growth Network will be to make accessible to rural enterprises good quality enterprise support whilst linking many of our rural businesses to the developing low carbon and environmental technologies that sit within our great universities.”

Caroline Spelman added: “Our £15m investment will create thousands of new jobs and hundreds of new businesses, boosting the rural economy and supporting thriving local communities. Altogether we’re spending £165m to support economic growth in rural England, and shows once again that we are firmly on the side of rural communities.”