BUSINESS NEWS

FOGLE TO PRESENT AWARDS

Ben Fogle has been confirmed as the guest speaker at this year’s Cornwall Business Awards.

Fogle had originally been due to present the awards back in 2020, which had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.

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 kept up his adventurer spirit climbing Mount Everest, rowing across the Atlantic, racing across Antarctica to the South Pole and crossing the deserts of the Empty Quarter in the Middle East.

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.

The Cornwall Business Awards will be presented at a gala ceremony on June 30.

CULTURE BID FAILS

Cornwall has been unsuccessful in its bid to become City of Culture 2025.

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.

Either Bradford, County Durham, Southampton or Wrexham County Borough will be named City of Culture 2025.

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.”

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.”

KWARTENG IN CORNWALL

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng viewed some of the latest local projects during a visit to Cornwall last month.

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.”

PLAIN SAILING

Support from Marine-i is helping Falmouthbased business, Openarc Marine, develop a completely new approach to on-board generators for use when cruising under sail.

This hydroelectric technology would have worldwide applications and help to eliminate reliance on fossil fuels for electricity generation at sea.

Openarc Marine director, Jim Shields, explained: “Our innovative new system can generate electricity at very low speeds, when other generators cannot. Because the amount of drag can be controlled, the user can choose to sacrifice speed to generate more electricity if they wish. This degree of control makes our product unique in the

RECORD NUMBER OF STARTUPS

Latest figures show that more new businesses were established in Cornwall during 2021 than in any previous year – despite the continuing economic challenges resulting from the pandemic.

While 2,145 businesses were dissolved in Cornwall last year, the 2,993 new companies that were registered in the county brings the total number of registered companies in Cornwall to 24,752.

The statistics come from the Inform Direct Review of Company Formations using data from Companies House and the marketplace, creating a significant step forward for our industry.”

Fellow director, Mark Basham, added: “Support from Marine-i has given us the opportunity to bring this new technology to market at a much faster rate than would otherwise be possible. We will be carrying out sea trials off Falmouth in Spring 2022 and the product is expected to be launched in 2023.

“From our base in Falmouth, Cornwall, we expect to create new jobs and growth in the local economy, and additional business for the local supply chain. From here, we can take our new technology to a worldwide audience.”

Office for National Statistics.

However, Cornwall does languish behind the national average. According to the stats, at the end of 2021, there were 46.2 companies in Cornwall per 1,000 people, which compares to a national average of 79.1. And there were 5.6 new incorporations in Cornwall per 1,000 people compared with 12.2 per 1,000 nationally.

The UK saw 771,617 new businesses formed, compared to 780,760 in 2020. The overall number of UK companies totalled 5,005,147, a 3.5% increase on the total of 4,837,426 at the end of 2020. This continues a ten-year trend which shows the number of businesses in the UK doubling in that period.

Whilst company formations grew, the number of dissolutions across the UK – 606,912 during 2021 – also hit a record high.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Folk2Folk, the Launcestonheadquartered lender for UK regional SMEs, is on track to achieve a profit of around £2 million for its 2021 financial year, effectively doubling the profit of the previous year.

Subject to audit, a 2021 pre-tax profit of £1.98 million will be Folk2Folk’s largest annual profit to date and marks three consecutive years of profit for the company.

Porthcurno has been awarded Plastic Free Communities status by Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), in recognition of the work it has done to start reducing the impact of single-use plastic on the environment. PK Porthcurno, Museum of Global Communications, started the campaign in early 2021 to tackle an increasing wave of beach litter and marine plastics.

Coodes Solicitors family lawyer Shelley Workman has been awarded the Law Society’s Family Law Advanced Accreditation, a recognised quality standard for family law practitioners.

Joe Nicholls has relocated from Bristol to joins Stephens Scown’s employment team in Truro as a parter. Nicholls has practised exclusively in employment law for more than a decade and brings with him a successful track record representing businesses and individuals in all types of employment tribunal litigation.

Miller Commercial has been named among the most active agencies in the south west, by The CoStar Group. The Truro-based chartered surveyor was ranked first in the Industrial Award – Most Active Single Branch Agency Acquisitions & Disposals (Number) category, just ahead of another Cornish consultancy - Smart Commercial Property.

Duchy Defibrillators has installed its 200th monitored public access defibrillator, in the heart of Truro city centre, located on the front of Vanilla bar and nightclub. Its monitored cabinets allow for real time data on the cabinet and defibrillator status to be accessed via an online system.