Monmouthshire County Council is celebrating ten key achievements in helping business thrive in Monmouthshire in the ten months since the creation of the authority’s new Regeneration and Culture department in September 2010.
Cllr Bob Greenland, Cabinet Member for Modernisation, Enterprise and Communications said, “One of our three key priorities is to protect existing businesses and jobs in Monmouthshire and to encourage new ones. We’ve made an excellent start on this and hope to do even more in the next ten months!”
The ten achievements include:
- The establishment and incorporation of a new, wholly MCC owned Community Interest Company – CMC2 – working at public-private interface. CMC2 is a trading subsidiary that will take forward the council’s plans for large scale investment in the economies of the future
- Creation of a ‘local enterprise partnership’ through the appointment of Venture Wales, a third sector business support organisation, to lead our Economy and Enterprise function.
- Green Deal Delivery Framework aimed at taking forward opportunities and options in the energy market that are real and right now. The first ten schemes will soon be underway, with Photovoltaic panels due to be installed in ten prominent council locations.
- Monmouthshire’s first energy led regeneration project at Overmonnow.
- Digital Deal Delivery Framework. We’re investing in the next generation of broadband. We’ve started collaboration with Herefordshire County Council to update broadband exchanges in the North of the county. This is supported by cutting edge digital tourism development, the evolution of public sector broadband aggregation through the Shared Resource Service and massive improvement to Caldicot’s broadband through the local loop unbundling of the Caldicot Broadband exchange.
- Systems thinking – a fundamental ‘rethinking’ programme’. The Development and Building Control sections have been ‘transformed’ with a new purpose, customer focus and a new approach to method and measures. This enables services to deliver products in new, more innovative and business focussed ways.
- Work based learning and training – through an innovative ‘mentorship’ with Torfaen Training, MCC has secured circa 120 placements per annum through the work based training programme (worth circa £500-750k per annum) and access to additional funding again to fund new placements, apprenticeships and traineeships supported by the new Work Programme.
- Back2Business Week – our agenda setting week-long festival of enterprise that successfully communicated to prospective investors, opinion formers and decision makers Monmouthshire is open for business.
- The creation of a £200,000 “Effectiveness Fund” to fund one off investment in the economic future of Monmouthshire and to deliver all of the above.
- Fundamental review of Tourist Information Centres to reposition as shop fronts for the key tourism destinations of Chepstow, Abergavenny and Monmouth. This helped inform the Shire Hall Business Plan, which sets out the future sustainable use of this Jewell in Monmouthshire’s crown.
