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FOGLE TO PRESENT AWARDS
Cornwall has been unsuccessful in its bid to become City of Culture 2025.
Ben Fogle has been confirmed as the guest speaker at this year’s Cornwall Business Awards.
From an original selection of 20 announced last year, Cornwall made it down to a longlist of eight regions before missing out on last month’s shortlist of four.
Fogle had originally been due to present the awards back in 2020, which had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.
South Pole and crossing the deserts of the Empty Quarter in the Middle East.
Either Bradford, County Durham, Southampton or Wrexham County Borough will be named City of Culture 2025.
Since bursting onto the nation’s television screens in 2000 on the reality TV hit ‘Castaway’, Fogle has enjoyed a career that has seen him present programmes such as Countryfile, Animal Park and Crufts.
He has written nine best-selling books, is United Nations Patron of the Wilderness and the Red Cross as well as being an ambassador to WWF and Hearing Dogs for the Deaf.
He has kept up his adventurer spirit climbing Mount Everest, rowing across the Atlantic, racing across Antarctica to the
The Cornwall Business Awards will be presented at a gala ceremony on June 30.
CULTURE BID FAILS
Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP chief executive, Glenn Caplin-Grey, said: “We’re disappointed, of course, but getting as far as we did is a huge vote of confidence in the quality and value of Cornwall’s cultural and creative sector, and the very act of bidding has allowed us to showcase some of the brilliant things that are happening in Cornwall and to plan for the future.”
KWARTENG IN CORNWALL Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng viewed some of the latest local projects during a visit to Cornwall last month.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE Leading accountancy and advisory firm Bishop Fleming has appointed a new head of manufacturing to reinforce its commitment to supporting the sector. Ally Allington, partner at the firm’s Truro Office, will head up the firm’s specialist manufacturing group. With over two decades of experience in the sector, Allington and her team work with over 325 clients in the sector – from entrepreneurial inventors to publiclyfunded projects, and manufacturers with international interests and multi-national distribution centres. She said: “I have been passionate about the sector for a very long time; being a trusted advisor to our clients and now leading the firm’s strategy in the manufacturing sector is a very welcome opportunity.” 6 | BUSINESS CORNWALL
During his stop, he attended the turf cutting ceremony of the new £5.6 million Spaceport Cornwall Centre for Space Technologies at Cornwall Airport Newquay. The centre is set to play a central role in the development of Cornwall’s space sector, with a first horizontal satellite launch set to take place this summer. Kwarteng said: “The Centre for Space Technologies, backed by Government funding, will be a hugely exciting asset to both Cornwall, and to the UK’s space sector as a whole. The facility will contribute to vital research and development in the field, bringing together industry and academia to exploit space to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges.”
The minister also visited British Lithium’s pilot plant near Roche. He met key members of the British Lithium team, toured the plant and saw some of the lithium carbonate that has been produced from the mica in locally extracted Cornish granite – a world first. British Lithium received £3 million in funding from Innovate UK to build the pilot plant after four years of intensive research and development. The plant became operational at the beginning of this year and includes ground-breaking technology that is currently being patented. “It was a pleasure to show the Secretary of State what we have been doing and to discuss our future plans,” said British Lithium CEO Andrew Smith. “Government support is critical in helping us achieve our targets and it was important to meet him in person and let him see the plant working.”
