Business Insight

Business Insight Thursday November 29 2012

Dock Star Liverpool’s SuperPort vision Page four

Two-way stretch

South Cumbria’s vital statistic Page fourteen

Driving Force Stobart’s Tinkler: deals within wheels Page ten

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

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Business Insight

Welcome

Where life works THE question of life-work balance (and how to find it) has lately been one of fashionable debate. So let’s ask, pertinent to that: Does business endeavour have to be concentrated into an uncomfortably squeezed corner of the land to be successful?

We trust that the answer lies in the following pages, which cast an all-too-rare light on an oft-underestimated region – the spacious North West – that pulls off the cleverest trick of all: combining waterside liveability with dynamic industrial energy.

As our writer says, introducing the area on page 14, South Lakeland may be 600 square rural miles but it has some economic hotspots that other authorities can only drool over – and its latest scalp is the new GlaxoSmithKline £350 million biopharm plant at Ulverston (page 16).

That company’s site director sums it all up simply: “What brings people here is not just the job. You couldn’t find a better place to live.”

The Times Forum, appearing twice in this issue to let wise local heads discuss the ambitions of Liverpool’s SuperPort project and South Cumbria’s enterprising leading businesses, amply illustrates our point: that geographic magnetism is not a magic key. Wherever there is innovative brainpower and adventurous spirit, success can find its launchpad.

And in the great scheme of things, that can be quite a nice place to be.

Inside

Ships with everything Liverpool’s SuperPort Pages 5-6 With wheels back on Stobart’s Tinkler Pages 10-11 Lakeland’s laurels Second Times Forum Pages 22-23 The Times Business Insight reaches more senior business people in the North of England than any other quality newspaper.

Indeed, with 184,000 readers* and reaching almost 20 per cent of the all c-suite executives**, there is no better place to be seen. *Source NRS July 2011 - June 2012 **Source BBS 2011

To advertise in the next North of England edition of Business Insight: Freephone 0800 027 0403 or contact: stuart@timesnorth.co.uk

Are you listening, Dave? Your Big Society is calling but there’s no reply Mike Cowley at large

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n 82-year-old housebound grandfather from Skelmersdale has managed to get over his own doorstep for the first time in 12 years thanks to a social enterprise business which seems to epitomise what David Cameron meant by the Big Society. But the disabled man behind the scheme claims the Prime Minister has failed consistently to personally answer any of his letters or phonecalls – although “a Government minister did promise to drop by the next time he visited the North – but that was two years ago”.

Peter Cousins – himself wheelchairbound, and who runs the Brighter Future Workshop in Skelmersdale – is understandably not very happy about the situation, particularly as he feels his organisation is the Big Society in action. The Brighter Future Workshop, which renovates mobility equipment, currently employs 17 people and had a turnover last year of £300,000 thanks to sales through Amazon and its own retail outlet.

When Mr Cousins’s spinal condition forced him to leave behind his job and his fitness-fanatic lifestyle in 1995, he found himself waiting 17 tor-

tuous months for a wheelchair from the NHS. Stuck at home with no income, he became bored and bitter – and, like many other social entrepreneurs, frustration led to him setting up something to help prevent others ending up in the same situation.

He opened the Brighter Future Workshop in 2005, and it has provided a source of training and work for some of the less fortunate people in Skelmersdale – the young, disabled and disadvantaged. The service users at the workshop have physical, medical, learning or emotional problems, or a combination. Some come every day, others a few days a week, working alongside teachers and mentors.

“We recycle people as well as wheelchairs,” says Mr Cousins. “These kids have been thrown on life’s scrapheap.

The workshop gives them a new lease of life.” But there is so much more that could be done, with 5 per cent of the 330,000 mobility scooters out there simply ending up as scrap – and

The difference is Commercial viewpoint

First Person Ed Matthews-Gentle The Creative Lancashire development officer discusses how design can be a powerful business tool

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ll businesses need to increase sales and constantly strive to unlock new markets to facilitate growth and maintain a competitive edge. The businesses that possess the ability to harness innovation as part of their DNA will be best positioned to respond rapidly to climatic changes in the economy and market trends. Design thinking plays a

crucial role in the transmission of innovative ideas and approaches.

The Cox Review of creativity and business stated that “Design is what links creativity and innovation. It shapes ideas to become practical and attractive propositions for users or customers. Design may be described as creativity deployed to a specific end.” In some situations, design and innovation are interchangeable.

For over a year, Creative Lancashire – a service provided by Lancashire County Council – have been collaborating with the Design Council to increase access to their Design Leadership programme, Designing Demand, to businesses in the Lancashire region. At a joint event on December 3 at Brockholes Conference Centre in Preston, Design Council design associates – a carefully selected network of highly experienced design management specialists – will speak to business leaders and decision-makers about the initiative. There will be an

interactive session to illustrate how design can have a significant impact in key business areas such as vision and strategy, customers and users, product and service development, brand and communications, and culture and environment.

For many, design rarely reaches beyond the standard website and logo.

While these are critical to business, there is so much more design can do.

From sewerage pipe manufacturers to tech companies, many are waking up to this new weapon in business growth armoury. This is the key message we want to communicate at the event.

Creative industry businesses are often early adopters of the tools embraced across other sectors to innovate, as well as to market and communicate with clients and users.

At this year’s Design Summit, the business secretary Vince Cable praised the creative industries and how they have meshed with technology and engineering to “produce products that

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

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Business Insight

the Brighter Future Workshop has the trained staff to get them back on the roads again.

The workshop has won numerous awards, including the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, and the Countess of Wessex has dropped by on an official visit with the Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire. Yet despite all this highprofile success, there is still an operating shortfall of 10 per cent, a matter of real concern with self-sustainability being their key objective.

Peter Cousins, however, will not countenance the suggestion that he puts up prices by that amount, as the entire business model is predicated on selling the products at a price people can afford. And with Skelmersdale being one of the most deprived areas in

the country, that means rock bottom – or even better deals, as the 82-yearold grandfather got.

Like many social enterprise schemes, the Brighter Future Workshop is finding that the grant funding pot has shrunk dramatically, thanks to Government cuts which have meant that everyone in the sector is chasing smaller and smaller amounts.

If it wasn’t for the Lottery Fund and the active support of the Co-operative Bank, there is every possibility that workshop would not have a future – and a lot more people would be both out of work and housebound.

The Co-op Bank, which has a large transaction processing unit in Skelmersdale, has not only raised “thousands” for the charity but has paid for

We recycle people as well as wheelchairs

The brilliant idea of Peter Cousins (centre) — renovating mobility equipment — is just what David Cameron’s Big Society is all about. So why is he getting no help from Government in fulfilling its potential?

in the design It’s what links creativity and innovation

Britain and the rest of the world wants to buy”. Mr Cable said that “British designers – from Brunel and Berners-Lee to James Dyson and Vivienne Westwood – have been admired around the world for generations. They have all contributed, not only to Britain’s reputation as an innovative nation, but also to our economic growth.” Design is an integral ingredient to innovation which drives growth.

The Design Leadership Programme is a business support route which aims to facilitate this larger role and drive economic growth, and in recent years it has worked with almost 700 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A recent evaluation shows that businesses participating in the programme can typically expect to see a return of £20 for every £1 they spend on design.

Understanding how to deploy design effectively can seem complex, or even a luxury when budgets are squeezed.

But those who decide to invest see clear benefits – whether by gaining a

stronger foothold in the marketplace, or rising above the general noise and becoming visible in new markets.

Access to the Design Leadership Programme is subsidised for UK SMEs through support from BIS (the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills). It provides access to Design Associates, whose hands-on, practical and independent direction helps them identify challenges and highlight key opportunities where design can add real value. This programme demonstrates that design should be a key voice at the board table. It can shape a product and service development process and is crucial to how a business presents itself to the world.

For more information about the Designing Demand Workshop to be held on December 3, visit www.creativelancashire.org The Design Council is the national strategic body for design and advises the Government on design in national policy.

a new website to be built and now has senior members of staff on the board of trustees to provide sound commercial advice. “You hear all the awful stories about banks these days,” says Mr Cousins, “and I know they are true because of the number of knockbacks we had when I was trying to get the idea off the ground. Well, the Co-op Bank have backed us to the hilt. They actually care.”

Whereas the Government appears to have made all the right noises on social enterprise, it has been left to concerned bodies like the Co-op to do something about it. The reason for the Co-op’s wholehearted support is that they see the synergy between what their mission is – seeking to bring benefits to the communities for their members – and social enterprise.

And though they are keeping it under wraps for the moment, the bank is planning to launch “a new proposition for social enterprise in 2013”.

So how big – and how important to the UK – is the social enterprise sector? According to the Social Enterprise Coalition’s website, there are 62,000 social enterprises across the UK. Based on Government surveys, social enterprises are estimated to employ 800,000 people and contribute £24 billion to the UK economy.

The 2009 State of Social Enterprise survey revealed a sector made up of businesses that were growing, and optimistic about continuing to do so.

Social enterprises were twice as confident as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) generally that their turnover would increase in the next financial year, and 56 per cent had grown in the previous year, compared to around 40 per cent of SMEs. This is also a sector made up of young businesses: over a third of social enterprises are less than four years old, a figure sufficiently high to suggest that new social enterprises are being created at a faster rate than would simply replace the ones which

are ceasing trading. There is a tendency for older social enterprises to be larger in terms of turnover – which, combined with the rate of business creation, suggests that there will be a “boom” of larger social enterprises within the next ten years.

But how to define social enterprise?

In 2001, the Department of Trade and Industry published Social Enterprise: a strategy for success. This document went a long way to putting social enterprise on the map, and in doing so also provided what became a very widely accepted definition: “A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.”

It would also seem that social enterprises are perfectly in tune with David Cameron’s idea of “Big Society, not Big Government”. A key publication in the 2010 general election campaign made 33 references to social enterprise in just eight pages. So the Government is talking the talk on social enterprise – but is it listening?

Not according to Peter Cousins of the Brighter Future Workshop.

“We’ve had the Royal visit now, but I am still waiting to hear back from the Prime Minister,” he says. “True, we’ve had the usual formal responses, but nothing personal from him. I know he is a busy man, but this is the Big Society calling.”

Meanwhile, one 82-year-old grandfather is enjoying his first taste of freedom for more than a decade in Skelmersdale. So where did he end up on his first trip out? “After being confined to looking out of his window all that time,” Mr Cousins says, “he got on the scooter and made his way down to the shop and bought himself a paper. That makes everything we do worthwhile, whether we hear from Dave or not.”

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

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Business Insight

A startling new vision for famous old docks sets the scene for Forum

SuperPort will restore Liverpool’s past glories £1.8bn project is ‘game changer’ for regional and UK business, says LEP boss Robert Hough

By Mike Cowley

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hil Redmond – he of Brookside and European Capital of Culture fame – was asked recently on Radio 4 what sound best summed up his home city. “It was hearing the hooters and sirens coming off the water in the fog,” he responded.

Whereas pea-souper fogs and smogs have gone forever, Liverpool will increasingly resonate to the sounds of major shipping as the port on which its past prosperity was built remerges as a SuperPort to help steer its future economic wellbeing.

Liverpool may never return to being the leading global trading city that it was in the 19th century, but you can be sure that Robert Hough, chair of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), along with those who share his vision, will give it a damn good try. After all, the new Liverpool City Region SuperPort will make the old Liverpool dockland area look like the fishing village it once was.

In size alone, the SuperPort will eclipse anything that an old Scouse docker might brag about, taking in not just Liverpool but also straddling the Manchester Ship Canal and stretching all the way into the heart of Manchester. This will be the first time in their 125-year history that the Port of Liverpool and the Manchester Ship Canal have been owned by one company – Peel Ports – and operated as a single integrated service.

As LEPs around the country are struggling to do, Liverpool intends to build on its natural strengths, with the port being the obvious unique selling point. “You can’t just create a river,” says Mr Hough.

“You can’t just create a port. That’s it in two lines.”

Not a port in the strict sense of the term, the SuperPort is the key cog in a major region-wide transportation hub, embracing rail, road, air and logistics assets which will be the envy of the world following a £1.8 billion investment in new infrastructure.

While 50 per cent of all deep sea containers that enter the UK are destined for the northern half of the country, over 90

Fab Forty-three – that’s the number of bookings for next year as cruise ships come ‘beatling back’ to Liverpool per cent come through ports in the South East – a logistical nonsense. With fuel prices rising inexorably, along with the impact of congestion on the UK’s infrastructure and the green argument, Liverpool’s SuperPort case is unrivalled.

Neither is the current Port of Liverpool simply a backwater as some visitors might imagine, with the city centre waterfront given over to the tourist attractions of Albert Dock. While no longer occupying a central position on the Liverpool skyline, it currently handles more cargo than at any previous time during its distinguished history – thanks in no small part to it being the most efficient port location to service the UK and Ireland.

The location, with its excellent connection to the motorway and rail network, enables logistics operators to service both Scotland and the South with same-day delivery and extensive multimodal facilities. It already offers ready access to large centres of population, with 17 million people living within a two-hour journey time.

The development of Liverpool 2, Peel Ports’ new deep-water container facility, will mean that the SuperPort can handle some of the world’s largest container ships. As the Manchester Ship Canal is also under Peel ownership, this will open up a green corridor into the heart of the second-most densely populated region in the UK. Meanwhile, the cruise ships are returning to Liverpool – 43 are booked to visit next year – and just as importantly the city will once again become a port of embarkation. This will boost the all-important tourism economy which – thanks in no small part to The Beatles – sees Liverpool as the second-most visited city in the UK after London.

But back to business. Expansion of the Mersey Multimodal Gateway (3MG) through Stobart, Prologis and Halton Borough Council will provide 3.5 million square feet of warehouse space connected directly to the west coast mainline. The new Mersey Gateway Bridge – scheduled to open in 2015 – is another piece of the SuperPort jigsaw that will deliver a new six-lane crossing of the River Mersey in Halton, significantly improving the City Region’s road connectivity.

Meanwhile, Liverpool John Lennon Airport, one of Europe’s fastest-growing regional hubs, continues to improve and expand its service offer to passengers and business – and Manchester Airport is literally down a well-serviced road.

The more than significant contribution of Peel to the SuperPort venture also includes the International Trade Centre in the Wirral, where international companies will be able to store and showcase their goods for the European market.

This, in turn, has already led to the announcement of the International Business Festival to be held in 2014.

All this will help to redress the situation which sees Liverpool City Region placed below average in terms of productivity, gross value added (GVA) and employment, even though the North West as a whole with £120bn has a GVA bigger than 14 European states.

Whereas Liverpool does have sectors where it is a global leader, these tend to be high-tech and not offering significant opportunities for employment. And the city suffers from pockets of real deprivation, particularly in the north – where the overriding issue, as elsewhere, is providing jobs for the distressed youth market.

The SuperPort, however, has the opportunity to address all this not only by additional direct employment but also by the myriad of companies that that will grow up to form the local supply chain.

“We have come full circle with a different model,” says Mr Hough. “In terms of port positioning – not in terms of jobs as we’ll never get back to those days – Liverpool is in its best-ever position. The City Region is cohesive and working to a common agenda formulated by the LEP. We are building on the river, we are building on the history and global reputation of Liverpool, which is second to none in terms of international trading reputation.”

The LEP is backing the portcentric model to the hilt, believing it will deliver a key ingredient in transforming the fortunes of Liverpool. “Our job is to identify those areas for growth and align those resources and skills to ensure they can perform to their best advantage,” Mr Hough says. He does not see the SuperPort as providing competition for Manchester, but as being complementary.

“Manchester is a totally different city.

Liverpool has extraordinary assets of a different type which would occupy global attention wherever they are – and it is that which we are working on for the future. In today’s world, it is so highly competitive, the competition between companies and between various regions is substantial. We are all doing our best – not to do down our neighbour – but that’s the impact of trying hard to win something.

Robert Hough: full circle

You can’t just create a river and a port

Robert Hough believes that the SuperPort project has “some real gamechanger schemes”, such as Liverpool 2, which will provide the platform for growth for what is already the closest port to the United States. “Without this investment, Liverpool’s position would be at risk,” he says. “There is no other city in the UK which is in the position to take forward an opportunity that provides all those environmental and social benefits.

I’m very proud of it in that it ticks all the boxes we want to see happen.”

The SuperPort also happens to tick a personal box for Robert Hough, as he loves ships. Born in Urmston – he still lives in Manchester – as an 11-year-old he would to make his way on his bike to Irlam Docks and eventually cycle right round Trafford Docks, checking out the Manchester liners. Even when he went into town on the number 12 bus, he used to sit on the top deck just so he could see the ships as the bus passed along Trafford Road.

Now he has an even better view from the LEP offices on the Liverpool dockside.

Often working until 7pm, he is transfixed as he sees one of the massive cruise liners slowly pull out to the strains of Ferry ’Cross the Mersey.

Robert Hough is not alone in his trip down memory lane, either: he heard one of the cleaners in the office crying as she looked at the scene which clearly illustrates that Liverpool is already reclaiming some of the glories of its past.

THE SUPERPORT’S KEY ASSETS

Cost- and carbon-efficient logistics location.

Centrally situated for the UK and Ireland.

Same day delivery to both Scotland and the southern part of the UK.

UK’s strongest export market.

50 per cent of the UK container market is closer to Liverpool than to the South.

17 million people live within two hours.

Largest population in the UK after London.

Excellent connection to the national rail and motorway market.

New deep-water container facility enhancing global connectivity.

Up to nine sailings per day to Ireland.

The Manchester Ship Canal offers a “green corridor”.

Wealth of excellent multimodal facilities and development sites.

£1.8 billion investment in new infrastructure.

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

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Business Insight

SuperPort: Shipping

One man’s mission to put logic into logistics Peel Ports’ £300m plan for Liverpool 2 promises return of ocean-going giants

By Michael Cape

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former apprentice who earned his commercial spurs the hard way, Gary Hodgson cheerfully admits he knew nothing about docks or shipping when he was appointed managing director of Peel Ports Mersey Docks.

A clue to his appointment lies in his having built a factory in Guangzhou in southeast China. Not that the factory itself was all that important – lots of factories are being built in China – but it was the implementation of the serious logistics needed to serve Asia, Australia and the European markets that showed Mr Hodgson was the man for the Liverpool job.

For shipping today is only one part of the jigsaw that makes up a logistics operation – and logistics is first and foremost what Peel Ports is all about. This is because Peel boss John Whittaker had the vision to place the historic Liverpool Docks and the equally famous Manchester Ship Canal under one ownership for the first time – his.

Not only did the move call time on the roots of historic enmity between Liverpool and Manchester – before football, and dating back 125 years to when the canal was built to diminish the influence of Liverpool – it also opened up the opportunity to create a SuperPort Centrics Logistics operation.

What the publicity-shy Mr Whittaker had seen was what could be achieved by bringing together two such unique and valuable assets. Yet even the term SuperPort is a misnomer, in that super though it may be, it is much more than a port. Enter the Centric Logistics part, which embraces all other forms of transportation in addition to shipping: road, rail and air.

Apart from recreating the potential to restore the ship canal to its past glory – but this time for the benefit of Liverpool rather than at its expense – it opened up a relatively undeveloped but highly commercial viable corridor between the two cities for a logistics hub.

Logistics today is all about getting goods delivered covering the shortest distances and thus saving time and costs, reducing the carbon footprint and declogging our motorways. So if you take the concept – as Peel Ports has done – of getting deep-water ships into Liverpool, then decanting the goods on to smaller vessels to make their way up to a series of mini “ports”, all the way up the 44 miles of inland waterway that is the canal, you get some idea of the scale of the project.

The largest of the canal drop-off points will be Port Salford, built close to the original Salford Docks (now a residential area known as the Quays) to serve Trafford Park. But it

doesn’t end there. To ensure the distribution centres and railheads achieve maximum efficiency, Peel has partnered with expert hauliers such as the Stobart Group and distribution leaders such as Bibby, opening up access to 17 million people no more than two hours away – the largest population centre outside of London.

“Maximising the efficiency across the whole supply chain for the benefit of the cargo owner is what this is all about,” says Gary Hodgson. And as 50 per cent of all containers that arrive in the ports in the South of England are destined for the North West, this is simply a case of applying logic to logistics.

Mr Hodgson, with responsibility for turning Liverpool Docks and the Manchester Ship Canal work into a single integrated service, finds himself very much in his comfort zone – the logistics driving seat. The project really kicks off with Liverpool 2 – so named because Liverpool One and the Albert Dock have turned Liverpool into a retail and tourist mecca – and Peel wanted to clearly define this as the next stage in Liverpool’s resurgence.

In March 2012, Peel Ports launched the construction tender for Liverpool 2, a £300 million project which will deliver a new deep-water, in-river container terminal capable of handling the larger ships which have not been able to dock there for many years. At the same time, it will enable Liverpool to attract a new generation of larger ships that will be heading this way after the widening of the Panama Canal.

What may surprise people is that Liverpool Docks – far from being in decline – welcomed a record container tonnage last year.

The fact the main centre of activity is no longer in the city centre but out in Seaforth and Bootle has created an out of sight, out of mind version of what is going on. Similarly, the traffic on the Manchester Ship Canal has been increasing – and will increase dramatically in line with the expansion of the SuperPort itself.

In 2008, the barge service – as it is known – involved some 3,000 movements.

This year there will be 12,000, and it will eventually reach an anticipated volume of 200,000. All this on a canal which in itself will remain more or less than same as since it was constructed. There is no longer the large workforce at the docks themselves that there was in the 1950s – but that was when handballing of goods was at its height and dockers were a force to be reckoned with in more ways than one.

As with many other heavy industries, mechanisation has put an end to all that and to some of the archaic union practices that gave both Liverpool and its native Scousers a far from unblemished reputation. Yet Mr Hodgson found that some of old ways still lingered when he arrived to take over the several miles of docks – for example the company was spending £20,000 a year on newspapers and magazines.

As he took up his new job just as the recession was beginning to bite, Mr Hodgson

New horizons: the project will deliver a new deep-water, in-river container terminal capable of handling leviathans ensured that such “non-essential spend” was tackled as a real priority – even though he is an inveterate reader of The Times, although now via his iPad. Whereas he admits to having had no knowledge of ports when he arrived, he was very comfortable in having the required number of experts on call.

“At a time when they were looking for someone for this role,” he says, “the company said they didn’t necessarily want somebody from the ports industry – they said it needed a fresh pair of eyes, a bit of fresh thinking.

We were very old-fashioned in terms of our internal processes. If you go back in history, ports were more or less nationalised industries, so many parts of the business were still operating in a very inefficient and bureaucratic manner – and, perhaps more damaging, they were very internally focused rather than focusing on the customers and the market needs.

“There were simple things we could do to make immediate improvements, like relaying out of offices so different functions could communicate and work together more easily, breaking down some of our internal silos. None of what we did was ‘rocket science’, but many small things helped to change the culture of the organisation.”

It has paid off, with no one more pleased than Gary Hodgson when Liverpool was named the Port Authority of the Year by Containerisation International, the leading trade publication. “The reason we won this award,” he says, “was because we were thinking differently outside of the port gate – so we weren’t constrained by internal focus.

“The whole raison d’être of me coming was to try and look at things differently – and I recruited a good team with logistics and supply chain backgrounds – as no matter which commodity we talk about, the principle driver of value is the efficiency of the total supply chain.

“You hear Tesco talking now. They’ve squeezed suppliers probably as hard as they can – but now they look to save money in logistics costs. That’s where we can play a very strong role. Naturally, we can’t do it all, we have to partner with the likes of Stobart and

Gary Hodgson

They said it needed a fresh pair of eyes... a bit of fresh thinking

DHL – we have to work together to find that value.”

Hailing from Burnley – and still a proud Burnley FC supporter, which is sometimes the subject of some derision from his colleagues – Mr Hodgson eats and drinks logistics. His expertise in this area has seen him rise from an apprentice with Thorn EMI – getting his mechanical engineering qualifications in his spare time – to a leading role in a project that will transform the economy of the North West.

Yet of all his successes with Peel Ports to date, it is the fact that they have employed 12 new apprentices this year, the highest number in the last 20 years – including their first female apprentice – which ranks highest among them in terms of personal satisfaction.

“As someone who came up through an apprentice scheme myself,” he says, “I can see what a difference the SuperPort project can make to the lives of youngsters. There may be no such thing as ‘jobs for life’ any more, but a young person starting out with us today, if they show the right attitude and are willing to be trained in different skills, could probably have a different job every five years and still not cover the complete range of disciplines required in the company.

“Part of our responsibility is to make sure youngsters understand the opportunities – especially with some of the history around Liverpool, as there’s still a bit of ‘working on the docks?’ stigma. We have to make sure people understand our industry is changing, it’s no longer dominated by the hard manual type of work it used to be.

It is technology-driven, forward-looking and specialist – but it still relies on some of the traditional engineering skills and it of course relies on the capabilities of its people.

“When I met our Apprentice of the Year recently, it reminded me of how I was when I started out. That really gives the motivation to continue to grow our business and create more opportunities for the young people of this region.”

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

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Business Insight

SuperPort: Backing

People are now thinking much more creatively about how we can get things done – together One dynamic woman with two roles is smoothing the bold project’s trajectory by opening the Atlantic Gateway to investment and sound partnerships

By Peter Morgan

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usan Williams is unusual in that she has two sides to her business card, each denoting a different high-flying job. One states that she is campaign director for the North West Rail Campaign, a role in which she has been instrumental in laying the foundations for the Northern Hub. The other reveals she is at the same time executive director of Atlantic Gateway, a private investment-led growth initiative for the North West whose vision has already won some powerful friends.

“If anywhere in the UK can develop the critical mass and momentum to become an alternative growth pole to London,” said a report by Lord Heseltine and Sir Terry Leahy, “it is Atlantic Gateway.” Not bad for an organisation that has only one full-time employee, at least for the time being. Susan Williams, however, is not your ordinary employee.

Coming from a political background – she was the leader of Trafford Council – she is a Ms Fixit, clearly capable of knocking heads together if necessary for the common good. She gets things done.

She is also adept at calling on her well-honed skills of cutting through bureaucratic red tape and turning on the charm when lobbying in Westminster – both prerequisites for the job. The Government’s decision to fund the Northern Hub – leading as it will to 30,000 jobs and a £4.2 billion boost to the regional economy – bears testimony to that.

Ms Williams also appears to have hit the deck running for the Atlantic Gateway, with the recent announcement from the European Investment Bank of their decision to fund £150 million of loans to Liverpool 2, the new deep-water container berth at Seaforth and catalyst for the Liverpool City Region SuperPort project. And considering all the diverse partners involved – both public and private – they are demonstrating an unusual degree of harmony as they tackle how best to shape the future fortunes of the North West.

Originally devised as a strategy by the now defunct North West Development Agency, the Atlantic Gateway Partnership is an umbrella organisation

which helps with initiatives for Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) in the region – in Liverpool, Manchester and Cheshire and Warrington. As such, it embraces the gigantic Liverpool City Region SuperPort project, which will transform the corridor from Liverpool Docks along the 44 miles of inland water of the Manchester Ship Canal into a world-beating logistics hub.

Yet the Atlantic Gateway is not a delivery body, and neither does it concern itself with what is already happening.

Its role is to put together an integrated strategy within the context of the plans of each LEP – identifying and smoothing-out cross-boundary issues. A facilitator at regional level, it also acts as lead lobbyist of the decision-takers and policy-makers in Government.

The results to date speak for themselves. It is forecast that by 2030, out of a potential for some 250,000 new jobs to be created in the Atlantic Gateway area, more than half will come from Atlantic Gateway projects involving £14bn of new investment.

The role of Ms Williams in all this is both complex and simple. She needs to ensure that previous rivals such as Manchester and Liverpool put aside historic differences and form a united front to lead the North West out of the current turbulent economic times and towards a better future. And whereas she may be the sole employee, she is certainly not working alone, having the hands-on backing of a powerful board made up of the great and good from all the key sectors throughout the North West.

Her new post sees her effectively rejoin Geoff Muirhead, formerly chief executive officer of Manchester Airport, who chairs not only Atlantic Gateway but also the North West Rail Campaign.

The board’s heavy hitters from the private enterprise sector include Martin Ashcroft, managing director of Tata Chemicals Europe, Dennis Bate of Lend Lease, Martin Douglas of Cargill, John Downes of the Langtree Group, Roger Milburn of Arup, Peter Nears of Peel and Kate Willard of the Stobart Group.

When you add the likes of Ian Stewart, Mayor of Salford, Terry O’Neill, leader of Warrington Council and Rob Polhill, leader of Halton Borough Council, it is obvious that this is no backwater quango. “You can see I have quite a formidable backup,” says Ms Williams.

Her role has been clearly spelt out for her by the board. They want her to drive the vision forward, to co-ordinate across all the LEP area, to identify blockages to progress, to encourage people to work together, to get things to run smoothly.

And they have made a good choice in that here is a political animal, blue rather than red in tooth and claw, mo-

tivated by the fact that she cannot stand people who sit and complain and who are not prepared to do anything about it.

“In every single thing I have done,” she says, “including the Atlantic Gateway, it is because I want to make it happen.” She readily admits, however, that her role with the Atlantic Gateway bestows no actual official power to make anything happen. “We don’t have power as such because we are not a bureaucratic organ. But we do have the ability to change the whole of the North West – our power lies in investment, the way we get people working together, the power in getting things done.”

What she is currently “getting done” is the Sea Basin Strategy – a vision for trade routes along the Atlantic Gateway which she helped create. The board has already agreed it, the three LEPs have signed up, and now it is to go to the European Union. The pace of progress remains a concern, however. “We’ve been talking to the Government about how to smooth out the processes,” Ms Williams says. “We want things to happen quicker, so we can get jobs and growth quicker.”

Born in Cork, Susan Williams moved with her family to a mining village in the North East. Her father, a doctor, is a committed Tory – as she too was to become later – but he never had chance to support his party locally, as no Conservative candidate had ever stood there. Her first job after graduation was as a nutritionist – specialising in supporting people with multiple sclerosis and a vocation she enjoyed for ten years while her children “were little”.

She had not planned to go into politics, but was drawn into a campaign to keep Trafford’s selective system of education.

Then someone asked if she would like to stand as a councillor.

That was in 1997, and the following year it was Councillor Williams. Two years later she became deputy leader of the opposition, then in 2004 she led the Tories out of the political wilderness and back into power. She stood down from running the council to fight the Bolton West seat for the Tories in the last general election. At three o’clock that morning she was announced as the winner – then three hours later this was reversed. She had lost by just 92 votes.

It was during her time at Trafford Council that Susan Williams learned about the benefits of collaboration and consensus. “Unless you get cross-party consensus,” she says, “it is very difficult to make progress on some of the bigger issues. The Northern Hub is a brilliant example of this – not only cross-party, but cross-business. There was a great tide of opinion that this needed to happen – and that’s why it did. And that’s why it will happen with Atlantic Gateway.

Susan Williams: No pure power ‘but able to change the North West’ “In the North West, in terms of historical infrastructure investment, we’ve seen precious little compared to the South East – we have come together because we see the bigger picture. Where the private sector is investing – as it is in Atlantic Gateway – the Government are very supportive. Private sector jobs have gone up by one million in last two years, so that desire to see private sector taking on the mantle is there.”

But would this spirit of collaboration have been there had it not been for the recession? “Yes, I think it would,” she says, “The recession has simply focused minds. It has made people think far more – tear up the rule book and think far more creatively about how we can get things done.

“We need to get confidence back and we’ll be flying. Recession has all been about confidence or lack of it, and the recovery will be all about confidence again. When you get Liverpool and Manchester agreeing on a common purpose – but still remaining competitive – you know you are on your way. Together we are stronger – that’s what the Atlantic Gateway is all about.”

Recession has been all about confidence.

We need to get it back, then we’ll be flying

RUNCORN

WIDNES

International names Diageo, O2, ABB, Stobart Group, INEOS and Mexichem power the economy of Runcorn and Widnes.

With plenty of space to grow, a superb workforce and situated at the heart of the nation’s transport network, Halton is the perfect location for your business.

MAKE IT YOUR HOME

WWW.RUNCORN-WIDNES.COM

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

8

Business Insight

Forum

Why Widnes is the place to be Our talking heads consider its great new position smack in the middle of Liverpool Region’s SuperPort scheme

By Mike Cowley

P

aul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel fame couldn’t wait to get out of Widnes. That’s why he was inspired to write his 1966 hit Homeward Bound while waiting for his train at the local railway station.

He was later quoted as saying: “If you know Widnes, then you’ll understand how I was desperately trying to get back to London as quickly as possible.”

After all, Widnes at that time was best known for chemical plants belching out eye-watering fumes. It wasn’t the kind of town found on any “places you must see before you die” list.

Now all that has changed. Companies from throughout the North are looking at Widnes in an entirely new light – it is taking on the greenest of green mantles because of its potential to reduce the carbon footprint not only regionally but nationally.

Widnes is on the up because of its geographical location. It now finds itself smack-bang in the middle of the Liverpool City Region SuperPort scheme, the perfect centre of the logistics hub which will transform the North of England.

Its location means that Widnes is able to offer all the key ingredients required for a modern logistics centre today – unrivalled connection by road, rail, air and sea. And the fact that it is able to take advantage of its position is down to the farsightedness of Halton Borough Council, the Stobart Group and Prologis.

Between them, they have helped create the Mersey Multimodal Park (known as 3MG) in Widnes, a location to which they plan to attract all those companies which want to keep distribution costs to a minimum, so ensuring the price of their goods remain highly competitive.

The Stobart Park freight facility within 3MG is the nerve centre, providing rail-connected high bay warehousing with direct access from the west coast main line and daily rail links to deep sea ports. It is fully operational – serviced by the famous Eddie Stobart truck fleet (they now even train their

drivers there) – and is already handling 150,000 containers a year.

All this could not have happened without the proactive cooperation of Halton Borough Council, which takes in both Widnes and Runcorn and has helped to smooth the way by easing planning application regulations to the legal limit. The success of the site has proved conclusively that public-private partnerships can get things done.

That is why the great and the good headed for the boardroom of the Stobart Ports site within the Mersey Multimodal Gateway to attend The Times Forum on the future of the Liverpool City Region SuperPort. While the SuperPort is already taking shape, the Forum provided a platform to bring Northern business bang up to date as well as to discuss outstanding issues.

Delegate after delegate saw the SuperPort as the answer not only to regional problems, but also as a route to rebalancing the national economy. The key issue on which there was universal consensus was that the current UK logistics network is in the wrong place.

With distribution “sheds” built close to the current motorways running along the spine of the country, this has simply increased the cost of transportation, which in turn has impacted on prices, competitiveness and the carbon footprint.

Instead, the Forum’s take on the issue was that the remainder of the UK should follow the Liverpool City Region SuperPort concept, placing key distribution hubs close to ports where most goods arrive, only then to be distributed around the country. What is happening at Widnes was held up as the model for future logistics hubs across the entire UK. Chaired by Jim Hancock, the BBC’s former North West political editor, the Forum debate first focused on the strengths of the SuperPort – location, location, location – and on its potential to create jobs. Mark Basnett of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) set the scene when he explained why his organisation had made the SuperPort a cornerstone of the economic priorities for the Liverpool City Region.

“The logistics market is moving very much to one of being driven by cost,” he said. “We see fuel prices heading up, and while are bringing large volumes of goods up north from south coast ports, it doesn’t make sense. We have a port, we have large-scale investment which will make it a major force once again.

We have the logistics capabilities – we are sitting here with Stobarts, who are the UK’s number one logistics business.

We have the fastest-growing regional

airport in the UK, we have a location with proximity to large centres of population, we have the potential to create 20,000 new jobs across the Liverpool City Region over the next ten years.

“We started two years ago with two large sheds available across the City Region and now we have none of any quality or scale available. There is the demand for the market to be here and that has already seen between two and two-and-a-half thousand jobs created.”

The importance of the availability of “sheds” – or distribution warehouses, as they are known outside the logistics world – was a running theme throughout the Forum. Widnes and the rest of the Liverpool City Region is ensuring there are a lot of sheds ready for companies to move into the area to service the North West, attracted by the lower logistics costs.

The connectivity of the area was also central to the discussions, as it is to the whole logistics pitch the SuperPort is making. Liverpool 2, the new deep-water terminal being constructed at Mersey Docks, is seen as the catalyst to make the entire SuperPort project work.

“At the moment, Liverpool can only attract less than 10 per cent of the current fleet of container ships that ply their trade around the world,” said Gary Hodgson, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Mersey Ports. “So we are fishing in a very small pond. Liverpool 2 will allow us to get back up to 90 per cent.

“The fact that 90 per cent of containers that come into this country are pushed into the South East – when more than 50 per cent are intended for north of Birmingham – is simply because they have the capacity from a size perspective. But this has to change.

So the whole model of portcentric logistics will become the norm, because you are reducing waste in the primary leg. I think this is going to be the real driver for the future.”

The significantly shorter journey distance by road that a portcentric model would allow is seen as an equally important ingredient in the successful logistics mix. It was left to Richard Butcher of the Stobart Group to restate a case that is becoming increasingly obvious. “I think there are a million containers coming into the North West from Felixstowe and Southampton every year,” he said, “and they go back empty. If you work that out, that’s about £300 a container, that’s £300m worth of waste. If it was coming into Liverpool, you would eliminate all that cost which inevitably has to be paid for by someone.”

This site is central and what we want to do is create similar sites all over the country

He was supported in this by Andrew Tinkler, CEO of the Stobart Group. “If you look at the average utilisation of vehicles,” Mr Tinkler said, “for every 1,000 vehicles on the road, 30 per cent are empty at all times. We have improved our situation by 15 per cent by collaboration with customers. But if you could do that with shorter journeys and keep utilisation high, you will have moved a long way to reducing running costs – which in turn means lower costs for our customers, declogging our motorways and removing the carbon footprint.

“I believe that in Europe, the UK is probably best at logistics. If you talk to retailers, they will tell you that. But the important thing is you start with the right location, which in the terms of supermarkets translates into food miles.

This site in Widnes is central, and what we want to try and do is create similar sites all over the country where it works for our customers. So everyone benefits.”

Rail freight transportation enhancement was also on the agenda, with discussions focusing both on High Speed 2 (HS2) and the Northern Hub and their likely impact on the SuperPort logistics.

Susan Williams of the Atlantic Gateway – who also doubles as campaign director of Northern Rail – took up the story from her sector. “High Speed 2 will have a bearing on capacity issues for freight,” she said. “But just as important will be some of the interventions with the Northern Hub, which will have a very big bearing – which is why it is one of our priorities.

“We’ve got rail, we’ve got road, we’ve got airports, we’ve got sea, all connect-

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

9

Business Insight

Forum The Forum panel:

Jim Hancock, chair – formerly the BBC’s northern political editor, he held a similar position previously with Granada.

David Parr, CEO of Halton Borough Council since 2004 and the senior responsible officer for the £600m Mersey Gateway Bridge project.

Mark Basnett is executive director for Key Growth Sectors at Liverpool City Region LEP, which includes responsibility for the development and delivery of the SuperPort.

Andrew Tinkler acquired Eddie Stobart Limited with colleague William Stobart and was appointed CEO. He has been instrumental in developing the strategy and vision that is today’s successful Stobart Group.

Richard Butcher is the CEO of the estates division for the Stobart Group. He is charged with the responsibility of identifying investment opportunities for the biomass division and sits on the board as company secretary.

Councillor Rob Polhill has been a member of Halton Borough Council for 23 years, and was elected council leader in May 2010. He is a member of the Liverpool City Region cabinet, Cheshire Fire Authority and the Cheshire and Warrington Sub-Regional Committee.

Susan Williams was appointed executive director of the Atlantic Gateway in May 2012. She has also been director of the North West Rail Campaign since January 2011.

Gary Hodgson joined Peel Ports in November 2008 as managing director of Mersey Ports, which covers Liverpool Docks and the Manchester Ship Canal.

Matt Thomas is the commercial director for Vantage Airport Group, which has a controlling stake in Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

Ian Higby is managing director of Atlantic Container Line UK Ltd, based in Liverpool. Atlantic Container Line operates container and roll-on, roll-off services in the North Atlantic.

Talking heads, from left: Ian Higby, David Parr, Jim Hancock, Susan Williams, Rob Polhill, Andrew Tinkler, Gary Hodgson, Richard Butcher, Mark Basnett, Matt Thomas ed in quite a small geographical area, which makes it a very flexible area in which to work and in which to invest, and that’s why we’ve got so much interest from overseas.”

Regional airports also had their moment, with Matt Thomas of the Vantage Airport Group saying there will be a move towards increasing the air freight potential at the Liverpool John Lennon Airport, in which his company has the controlling stake. “The current low-cost airlines model is not great from a logistics point of view,” he said.

“There is very little belly cargo availability. But we see significant growth opportunities now as the airport is moving away from low-cost reliance to a more diversified airport – one that has more international scheduled carriers carrying cargo that will open up more opportunities.”

Nor was the potential offered by the Manchester Ship Canal overlooked, with a suggestion that the plans to build mini port distribution centres along its length have the potential to reduce use of UK roads in the next ten years by 150 million miles. Yet there was little doubt from the Forum discussions that what had really made all this possible in terms of Widnes was the highly positive attitude of Halton Borough Council, whose sphere of influence covers the central hub of the SuperPort.

David Parr, the council’s CEO, explained that once the 3MG site had been identified as the “ideal logistics hub”, the local authority turned its attention to sorting out the planning policies. “Now the best way to get a decision on planning is to make sure your

planning policies are right in the first place before you actually put an application in,” he said. “And that’s what we did. So once you’ve got your asset and you’ve got your planning policies right, the next thing you want to start looking at is who you want to partner with – and that’s all about relationships.

“We spoke to lots of people and Stobarts saw the benefit of this site – and we have become partners. We want Stobarts and others to invest heavily in this site. It will be good for them, it will be good for jobs and the local business community.”

Mr Parr is not looking for Government help with Halton’s planning policies. “We can turn planning round very quickly,” he said. “If you have got your planning policies right and you have got your offer right, you don’t have an issue with planning. The recent application for a chiller warehouse took six weeks. We had issues with the environment agency but we worked together to resolve them. We have a culture of not just saying we will do it, but actually doing it.

Mr Parr is backed to the hilt on this by the leader of Halton Borough Council, Councillor Rob Polhill, described by his CEO as “showing the courage to take strategic decisions”. To speed up the process, Cllr Polhill changed the way planning decisions were formulated, moving from an eight-week to a four-week cycle, also actively helping companies with their planning applications.

“We were the first in the country dealing with beacon applications,” he said. “I’ve always said that if you are

doing it, and it feels right, then it has got to be right. Businesses have got to know what is going to happen and we have got to make sure we are on businesses’ side. Not to give them carte blanche to do anything, but certainly they can come and to talk to us.”

Not that it has been all smooth sailing for Halton Borough Council. Even today, they are still having to maintain the pressure to ensure the Mersey Gateway Project goes through without a glitch. This will see a major new sixlane toll bridge over the River Mersey between Widnes and Runcorn, which will relieve the congested and ageing Silver Jubilee Bridge.

The scheme has been approved by the Government, which has committed up to £470m towards the £600m cost for what is one of the largest infrastructure projects being undertaken by a local authority. “It’s more than a bridge, it’s about bringing in investment and regeneration,” says Cllr Polhill. “It is vital that we get this bridge built.”

Not only is the new bridge important to Halton, it is also a critical component for the success of the SuperPortcentric model, as it is one of the major bottlenecks between the motorways and the southern part of the region.

Known as “pinch points”, the team behind the SuperPort is conducting ongoing lobbying with Government to ensure that these are eliminated.

They also have to resolve another significant issue – ensuring that the ship owners head for Liverpool rather than for the Southern ports which are now a well-established part of their

It’s better to get the importers to dictate direction

routes. This was raised by Ian Higby of the Liverpool-based Atlantic Container Line (ACL), who suggested that pressure needed to be applied to the customers of the shipping lines rather than to the shipping lines themselves.

“There is a lot of conservative thinking among ship owners,” he said, “and they are used to their traditional ports of call. So it is better to get the importers to dictate the direction. In the North West, we have to be even more competitive than elsewhere. We talk about the South, but the South is competitive and has advantages.

“We want to flip this round and say we are even more competitive here.

For ACL that works, but we’ve got to switch a lot of conservative thinking amongst other ship owners. It is all about de-risking as much of the business as you can, because so much is so risky that you can really have no control over it. When a monster ship comes in, it needs to be in and out as quickly as possible. We need to be in and out of Liverpool within 12 hours, so we can have another 12 hours at sea. So we are back to logistics again.”

Meanwhile, someone who spent some of his formative years in logistics finds himself back in the driving seat. Cllr Rob Polhill used to be a truck driver, working for a firm that Eddie Stobart eventually took over. “That was a long time ago,” he said, “when Widnes was only known for its chemical plants.”

No wonder Paul Simon wanted to get out then – but I’ve heard that part of it was due to his having had a gig there that didn’t go down very well.

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

10

Business Insight

Cover story: Stobart Group’s Andrew Tinkler

Driving force who helped a national treasure to keep right on trucking The wheels were falling off, but he and William Stobart found a key to survival and expansion

Profile by Mike Cowley

A

ndrew Tinkler is the no-nonsense Cumbrian entrepreneur who stepped in and helped to save a “national treasure”, Britain’s favourite superbrand Eddie Stobart, when the wheels were about to come off the corporate bandwagon. With Mr Tinkler called out to a financial breakdown – along with William Stobart, his childhood pal and brother of the late Edward – the Stobart Group not only pulled back from the brink but went on to emerge as a stellar multimodal logistics giant.

Not bad for someone who left Kirkby Stephen grammar school with one GCSE “in cooking”, and who was looked on by the teachers as a “waste of space” when he turned his back on any pretensions to academia at the age of 15. And, for several years, it certainly looked as though they were right, as Mr Tinkler tried his hand at a succession of less than high-flying jobs – one of which included washing Eddie Stobart trucks.

A five-year apprenticeship with a local cabinet-maker ended in three years when he opted to become a labourer on a gas pipeline. What followed was a stint at Stobart, washing the trucks during the day and painting them at night, as one thing Andrew Tinkler has never been is workshy. Restless as usual, he then flitted to farming for a year, milking cows and lambing.

Then, at 20, he found he could make some real money working for Everest double glazing. This sometimes translated into £1,000 a week and by the age of 23 he had enough to set himself up in business. A small van was purchased from a local butcher, he paid a signwriter to announce who he was – “W A Tinkler, Joinery and Building Contractor” – no job too big or small was the implication.

All that was then necessary was to throw his tools in the back.

Busy hanging doors at an old people’s home, he experienced one of those Damascene moments for entrepreneurs which dictate success or failure. The regular builder had let the home down, so when the owner spotted the sign on his van he asked if Mr Tinkler wanted to take on the work. That job turned out to be worth £400,000 – and, with the help of skilled

mates whom he swiftly recruited, the job proved to be “a good ’un”. The profits were used to buy a piece of land, build some houses and sell them on. Mr Tinkler was on his way.

This was not just down to luck, however. Almost without realising. Andrew Tinkler has been honing the skills that would eventually see him being transported around in his own helicopter. That much-abused phrase – the University of Life – saw him graduate without cap and gown but with a depth of knowledge only to be found by getting your hands dirty.

The classes may have not been held in a traditional academic setting, but they benefited from being in real “real time”.

As an apprentice joiner, he learned the importance of skills. As a labourer and farmer, he learned that hard work was the key to getting ahead. As a cleaner for Stobart trucks on £4 an hour, he learned attention to detail – because at Stobart cleanliness was not just next to godliness, but lack of it could see you down the road and not behind the wheel of one of their trucks.

Arguably though it was working for Everest that gave Mr Tinkler an insight into business that cannot be taught at business school. The highly competitive environment of double glazing saw Everest employees have £20 deducted from their wages when anyone complained, but £20 added when someone wrote in and said they had done a good job. And getting someone to sit down and write a thank-you letter only resulted from service above and beyond the call of duty – as when Mr Tinkler made the customer a cup of tea, rather than the other way round. It was a lesson that he carries with him to this day.

This reputation for meticulous work, service and getting the right people to buy into the concept won Mr Tinkler increasingly larger contracts, first in the building sector, then in civil engineering.

Always looking for the next opportunity, he was among the first to throw his hat into the ring to win highly lucrative work from Railtrack, now Network Rail, where the need for systems was rammed home.

Success came relatively swiftly with turnover of the company – known as W A Developments – rocketing from £600,000 to £26 million in just three years. The growth of his own firm matched that of Stobart at the time – and underpinning this remarkable corporate growth was Andrew Tinkler’s insistence on having the right systems in place, knowing that this is the only platform on which true skills and service could grow. The larger the contracts won, the more this became essential, with ever-increasing bureau-

cracy strangling those businesses which failed to comply.

One of the firms to fall foul of a lack of systems was Eddie Stobart. Like his father before him, Edward Stobart junior was the quintessential hands-on haulier who treated his trucks and their drivers as his progeny. The problem for the company was that, as it grew at a meteoric rate, the systems already in place failed to keep up.

In 2001, brother William felt it was time for a new challenge and left his management role at the family firm to buy into old pal Andrew Tinkler’s operation. Eventually, it was Edward Stobart himself who realised that his business was heading along extinction highway.

Faced with losses of £10m, he offered it to brother William and partner Andrew Tinkler – who by this time had the money and the access to funds needed for the bail-out operation.

The deal was effectively done in one evening, with Edward Stobart, an intensely private man, handing over the reins and heading off for a quieter life.

This saw Andrew Tinkler and William Stobart change jobs from the ones they were then doing at W A Developments.

Mr Stobart took over the operations side because he already knew it, while Mr Tinkler went in and took over the financial operation – putting controls in place to manage the risk.

One of the first areas that came under his scrutiny concerned trucks running empty, as this results in a loss of £1.50 per mile. Mr Tinkler quickly established a model which has seen this reduced by 15 per cent, with a profit and loss statement on every vehicle in the fleet. Yet this remained a traumatic time for all concerned, as Eddie Stobart – the firm – was a national treasure, a brand that had its own well-established nationwide spotters club numbering Jools Holland and Ronan Keating among its members. A phenomenon, perhaps, that only a trainspotter could fully appreciate.

Honk if you see an Eddie Stobart truck had become a strange but truly national ritual. Stobart even holds “Truckfests”, which attract tens of thousands of people who come to gawp at the vehicles and their drivers. Edward Stobart himself had also become part of the UK psyche – requiring his drivers to wear shirts and ties (although the ties eventually had to go for health and safety reasons), when truckers traditionally sported oil-stained overalls and were best known for terrorising timid car drivers.

When Edward Stobart died of a heart attack a few years after walking away from his firm, his funeral resembled a state occasion. The distinctive red-and-

green livery on trucks – each with a girl’s name – had turned a haulage firm into an institution which had been taken to the hearts of the British public. There are Eddie Stobart truck toys made by Corgi; there are Eddie Stobart T-shirts. It was as if an Eddie Stobart truck had won The X Factor simply by revving its engine and honking its horn.

Eddie spotters the world over still chant “Eddie Stobart” to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus, while The Wurzels took it one stage further by recording I want to be an Eddie Stobart Driver. An urban myth suggests that the Spotters Club at one time made more profit than the Stobart Group – but this may well have been true during the company’s sad decline. The mere idea of Eddie Stobart trucks running out of commercial gas was unthinkable: it was as if Marks & Spencer suddenly announced they were no longer to sell underwear.

It was a difficult time for Andrew Tinkler and William Stobart when the realisation dawned that the company was in serious trouble. Mr Stobart had family ties, while Mr Tinkler had fond memories of when he was paid to wash the trucks and would often find the boss, sleeves rolled up, working alongside him.

Yet Andrew Tinkler and William Stobart had to keep emotion out of the response to the approach made by the most famous member of the Stobart family. As with all his business deals, Mr Tinkler swiftly undertook a risk assessment. “We had to make sure the business was recoverable,” he recalls.

“The skill sets between William and myself worked really well. He had a great knowledge of transport and I was

We had to make sure the business could be recovered, and the skill sets between William and me worked really well

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

11

Business Insight

If all the trucks in the 2012 Stobart fleet were parked end-toend, they would form a convoy more than 20 miles long.

There are over 2,500 tractor units on the road, with some 45,000 tyres in use at any one time – and a delivery is made every five minutes.

Unusual loads have included the lights at Piccadilly Circus and the turf for Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

When the BBC’s Top Gear tried – unsuccessfully – to launch a Reliant Robin into space, they used Stobart to transport the car and kit to the firing range.

The Stobart warehouse space could store more than 7,000 average family homes.

How Widnes became well connected

T

Corners turned: Mr Tinkler’s expectations of the now-multimodal group have been exceeded but he keeps a firm grip on it looking to investigate the business and see where the problems really were.”

It also helped that there was a lifelong bond between the two men. Having met as youngsters, they had gone through the rites of teenage passage together: enjoying their first pints, chasing girls – they even married sisters, becoming brothersin-law, after previously courting two other siblings.

With William Stobart’s knowledge of transport and Andrew Tinkler’s wellproven business acumen, they were a force with which to be reckoned. The pair obviously did their homework, as at the end of their first year in charge they were back to the break-even point. However, with fuel becoming ever more expensive, they soon saw that the way to achieve growth was through an all-in-one transport solution involving road, rail, sea and air. The somewhat clunky term “multimodal” summed it up.

With the plans in place and the potential seeming boundless, the only limiting factor was having the financial funds.

After looking at various options – even French rival Norbert Dentressangle was in the frame to invest or buy out at one time – the final act was to list the business on the Stock Exchange, where it currently sits on the FTSE 250.

The investment raised has provided the springboard for rapid expansion of Eddie Stobart through acquisitions – they have bought some competitors, a port, an airport – with turnover jumping from £100m to over £500m in the period up to 2011. But although it is now all about delivering shareholder value – and ensuring the brand succeeds in all sectors – Eddie Stobart plc remains essentially a family affair. This has been reinforced by the in-

flux of the next generations of both the Stobarts and the Tinklers.

Laura Tinkler, 20, runs the Steady Eddie fan club while her 18-year-old brother Adam, who is currently involved in farming, is due to take his HGV test shortly so may end up driving for Stobart. William Stobart’s daughter April, 22, is currently learning the business, while the latest Edward Stobart – the 21-year-old son of William – is, like his father before him, gaining experience in all areas of the business.

Neither has the Stobart brand been diluted since the group went into expansion mode. The fact that the company now has its own dedicated TV show on Channel 5 – Eddie Stobart: Trucks & Trailers – has seen to that. First broadcast in 2010, the series has achieved strong ratings, with audiences of two million, while admittedly being somewhat light on plot or tension. In many ways it is like watching Ice Road Truckers without the ice, but the continuing warmth for the Stobart brand ensures the series retains its popularity.

Mark Dixon, one of the firm’s drivers, now has 32,000 followers on Twitter – although he insists he is not a celebrity but a truck driver, “and that’s what pays the wages”. Not that the company had to sell the television people what is arguably the world’s biggest free plug for a logistics company. The production company came to them – then found the Yorkie chocolate bar brand to sponsor it. This was similar to the Spotters Club, where it was the spotters themselves who effectively came up with the club’s concept by writing to Stobart and expressing their interest.

Although the Stobart Group has grown to a point where it has exceeded even Andrew Tinkler’s expectations, he

has retained a firm grip on the business.

Whether it is the group’s extensive holdings in transport and distribution, estates, infrastructure and civil engineering, biomass, ports or air, Mr Tinkler still knows what is going on – thanks to the systems he has put in place. On my visit to his office in Carlisle, he was able to quote the exact occupancy during the previous evening of the rooms at the hotel which forms part of the group’s Southend Airport.

Yet as the Stobart Group continues to expand, Andrew Tinkler has managed to find time for an outside pursuit – horse racing. Oddly enough, this was also sparked off by those formative teenage years in Kirkby Stephen, the Cumbrian market town of around 2,500 people where he still lives. With the help of friends, young Andrew bought a trotter and became something of a sensation, winning races perched on the cart as he took on all-comers at events such as the Appleby Horse Fair.

Today, though, he has moved up from the trotter stakes into owning and breeding thoroughbreds, with a string of some 90 horses. And ever the consummate businessman, even this pastime is becoming profitable. He recently sold a yearling from one of his brood mares for £340,000, when it cost him just £25,000 to cover.

So now that personal financial reward has long been forgotten as an incentive – and Stobart as a brand goes from strength to strength – what ambitions and what goals does Andrew Tinkler have left? “It would be a choice between winning the Guineas or moving up to the FTSE 100,” he says. “And if pushed to decide, it would be taking Stobart into the FTSE 100…”

he Eddie Stobart management team know a good thing when they come across it. So when, as part of a takeover, they acquired a site in Widnes covering more than one million square feet, they soon realised they had the potential for a world-class distribution site in the heart of the North West.

Stobart Park now sits at the heart of 3MG, the Mersey Multimodal Gateway – multimodal meaning that road, rail and storage facilities are all on tap – ensuring that Widnes is set to become the best connected site in the UK in terms of logistics.

Strategically located between the west coast main line and the north bank of the River Mersey, 3MG offers a unique location opportunity for freight, warehousing, retail and import/export businesses. And when it comes to freight and warehousing, there are no companies that know more than the Eddie Stobart Group.

A rail-connected site with the best fully operational rail freight terminal in the UK and easy access to the M56, M6 and M62, it is a distribution dream which is already recognised as such by Tesco. Within nine months of signing the agreement, a derelict brownfield site was transformed into the premier Tesco chilled distribution facility in the North West.

“This new modern facility will allow us to greatly enhance the service to our stores and customers across the North West of England,” says Juliette Bishop, Tesco corporate affairs manager.

Having one major brand in the bag, the Stobart Group and 3MG are confident that others will soon follow. With planning consent already in place, companies which consider moving to Stobart Park can avail themselves of a build-to-suit scheme, where detailed consent can be given for a single building of one million square feet with an eaves height of 120 feet. The scheme can also accommodate a cross-docking distribution centre of 650,000 square feet.

Stobart Park also offers the benefit of an onsite biomass sustainable power plant. This is part of the booming Stobart biomass division, which specialises in generating renewable electricity by burning waste wood and similar products to provide “green energy”.

Naturally, Eddie Stobart Logistics Services, the UK’s largest chilled, ambient and specialist road fleet, is available at Stobart Park. The logistics service includes a national network of 50 high-quality warehousing and cross-docking sites, strategically located across the UK to provide overflow capacity if required.

Occupiers of Stobart Park will also benefit from direct access to the new Mersey Gateway Bridge, due to open in 2015. The £431m project will provide three lanes in each direction across the River Mersey, with the bridge sited around a mile to the east of the Silver Jubilee Bridge.

Halton Borough Council – under which Stobart Park comes – is a fully committed partner to the entire 3MG scheme, and the Halton Employment Partnership undertook the recruitment of staff for the new Tesco facility.

The partnership progressed 7,000 expressions of interest, organised 1,250 interviews and helped Tesco to appoint 422 new staff – and this service will be open to all newcomers to Stobart Park.

“Widnes as a site is very important to us as a group,” says Andrew Tinkler, chief executive officer of the Stobart Group. “It is perfectly positioned to provide a full logistics hub for the all-important North West business region, with opportunities to use sustainable forms of transport.”

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

12

Business Insight

The economy

Crisis? What crisis?

2013 is set to be marked by a shift in global economic power. What does it mean for businesses in the North of England? Lucy Moore investigates

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ith US politicians facing a December 31 deadline to agree new legislation that could make or break the global economic recovery, one might expect forecasters to be anxious about 2013. In fact, the scenario of the world’s largest economy going over a “fiscal cliff”, triggering $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts, has left many market-watchers sanguine, convinced that the pressure to do a deal will surely end the standoff.

“The brinkmanship of last year was hardly helpful to markets,” said Carl Cross, an investment director at the Liverpool office of wealth managers Investec, “and although some compromise between Republicans and Democrats is the most likely outcome, the way this is handled will be the key to market sentiment.”

One of the most widely reported economic commentaries of 2012 saw Jim O’Neill, the influential economist who chairs Goldman Sachs, complain of a lack of perspective about the world economy.

He insists that most economies are doing well and that the problems of the downturn are focused on a handful of nations – the US, the UK and the struggling Mediterranean countries. “People are so mired in their own self-interest,” said Mr O’Neill, who a decade ago forecast the spectacular growth of Brazil, Russia, India and China – the BRIC economies. “They are not as interested in the rest of the world doing better as they should be.”

The International Monetary Fund has predicted that in 2013 the so-called “developing world” will out-produce the devel-

oped world for the first time. As recently as ten years ago, the developed world was still dominant, producing some threefifths of world gross domestic product (GDP). Next year, just over half of all output will come from developing countries.

Supporters of UK plc reject the idea that it has failed to grasp this new situation. “There’s a great deal of focus on the BRIC economies,” said Patrick Curtis, a corporate partner at Laytons Solicitors in Manchester. “The export figures from the North West have dipped somewhat this year in response to falling global demand, but a lot of hard work has been done to make the most of the opportunities presented by growth countries like China.”

One firm which has pushed hard into developing markets is Suttons Group, a logistics provider based in Widnes. It has 800 employees deployed in offices across the UK, Europe, the US, Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, Singapore and Malaysia. Suttons moves bulk liquids, powders and gases including chemicals and fuels, as well as refrigerant and propellant gases.

Group managing director Andrew Palmer says the company has continued to achieve organic sales growth throughout the downturn – with group revenues for 2011/12 increasing to £149 million and pre-tax profits rising to £7.2m. In the last two years, revenues have grown around 40 per cent. “We have been on an upward trajectory since 2007 and have tripled our profitability in that time-frame,” he said.

“That’s partly been about taking on new customers, including British Sugar, Air Liquide and BOC, but also developing growth markets.”

China has been a particular focus. “We were one of the first logistics companies to have a wholly-owned foreign enterprise there,” Mr Palmer said. “We went into the market in the best way possible, with one of our customers, ICI Polyurethanes. They wanted to work in China and we went with them. We started with three people in Shanghai in 1997. We now employ 70 people operating from six bases and have revenues of circa £30m a year. We’ve been successful because we’ve followed the rules, studied the business culture, developed an excellent customer base and because we have good people.

Driving out across the world – the wheels of the Sutton Group

Andrew Palmer, Group MD

“Our customers in China include BASF, Bayer and Huntsman. One of the reasons multinationals have been pleased to work with us is our track record in terms of safety and good practice – people have a lot of confidence in our operations and our safety culture.”

Mr Palmer also emphasises the role that Suttons’ values have played in securing business. “We are a modern business, but also traditional in terms of our values and integrity,” he said. “We never try to be cute. We’re operating all over the globe, in areas where there can be complex compliance and security issues. Our customers are big multinational businesses who appreciate the consistency of our approach in what is a highly regulated business.”

He is driving a growth plan designed to double the company’s revenues in the next three-to-five years, and Saudi Arabia is a key component of the strategy. Earlier this year, the firm set up a joint venture with Arabian Chemical Terminals (ACT) to form a new company called Suttons Arabia.

Notwithstanding the charge of navelgazing that Jim O’Neill has levelled at both UK and US businesses, Andrew Palmer believes Suttons understands the changing world situation. “Our progress into new territories has always been about taking calculated risks based on careful research and preparation,” he said. “The business is built on stability and knowing who we are. Our focus is on what our customers want. We know the costs, we know the revenues and we know what returns to expect.”

Firms still waiting on relief from bank mis-selling

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anks are being put under pressure to speed up compensating the scores of North of England businesses thought to be struggling as a result of mis-sold interest rate protection products. The scandal emerged in the summer of this year, when the Financial Services Authority (FSA) revealed “serious failings” in the way these complex hedging products had been marketed to thousands of small and medium-sized companies.

Eleven high street banks, including Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Yorkshire and Clydesdale banks have agreed to compensate firms which were the victims of mis-selling. Several other

smaller lenders have joined the FSA compensation scheme, but there is widespread concern that the process is taking too long.

Guto Bebb, the Conservative MP leading the all-party parliamentary campaign to get redress for business, has warned that some lenders are dragging their feet, delaying the ability of other banks to launch the pilot scheme. “We should not allow a position to develop where the banks can only move forward at a pace dictated by the most intransigent institutions,” he has said in a letter to the FSA. Daniel Fallows is a director at Haydockbased Seneca Banking Consultants, which is handling a number of claims for businesses in

the North West and Yorkshire. “Action needs to be taken as an absolute priority,” he said.

“Hundreds of firms across the North of England have been sold products by banks they thought they could trust which in fact have damaged their business. The owners have been left straddled with ruinously high interest rates for loans and a great deal of personal anxiety and stress.

“The products were often presented to them as a simple insurance against rising interest rates, when in fact these hedging products are highly complex financial derivatives. Many victims were not made aware of the nature of what the bank had involved them in – or the very significant costs attached to exiting the

product. In some cases, this has caused businesses to fail.”

The FSA estimates that over 40,000 small and medium-sized businesses may have been mis-sold interest protection products, which involve mechanisms known as swaps, collars or caps. “It’s important to check your finances and take specialist advice if you think you were sold one of these interest-protection products” said Mr Fallows.

Estimates of the eventual cost of hedge misselling vary greatly, but some experts believe the scandal could end up costing the banking industry more than £10 billion, potentially making it more costly than payment protection insurance mis-selling.

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

13

Business Insight

Careers

Hard work and ability help women in football S to break glass ceiling

New complex jobs promise

By Lucy Moore

S

tudents, staff and visitors packed into the main lecture theatre at UCFB College of Football Business in Burnley to hear some of the most powerful women in the world of football business address key issues about the past, present and future of the game.

The panel of speakers included Jacqui Oatley of BBC Sport, the first woman to commentate on Match of the Day, Kelly Simmons, Head of National Game at the Football Association, Margaret Byrne, chief executive officer (CEO) of Sunderland AFC and Sam Gordon, financial director at Norwich City FC. The event was chaired by Sue Mott, the hugely experienced freelance journalist and broadcaster.

Margaret Byrne doesn’t mince her words. “If you’re good enough,” she said, “if you’re gutsy enough and if you work hard enough, you’ll get there.

Put the work in, and you can expect the rewards. If you don’t, then don’t feel sorry yourself when you fail. Man or woman – it doesn’t matter.”

Though small in stature, she speaks from a position of considerable authority. As the only woman CEO of a Premier League football club, she has faced it all – ignorance, prejudice and resistance – yet she dismisses the notion of a “glass ceiling” that blocks women’s progress to senior positions within the business side of the sport.

Above all, she commands respect and leads from the front, whether making her point to fellow board members at Sunderland or to a rapt – and almost entirely female – audience at the first Women in Football Forum to be held at UCFB within Burnley’s Turf Moor stadium.

UCFB is an innovative higher education institution offering degree courses in subjects related to the business side of football – and its main lecture hall, the venue for the forum, directly overlooks the Turf Moor pitch. When Sue Mott raised the “glass ceiling” issue, opinion promptly divided. The FA’s Kelly Simmons felt that women remain under-represented in all aspects of professional sport, especially in more senior roles. While she agreed that women are now treated with greater respect, she argued that the rate of change needs to improve.

“While prejudice against women, and the false assumptions that go with it, remain real issues,” she said, “change is inevitable. What is a concern is the rate at which that change is happening. It’s still far too slow, and it may even require intervention by Government to truly speed things up.”

Kicking off some fresh ideas: Kelly Simmons (Head of National Game, The Football Association), Margaret Byrne (CEO, Sunderland AFC), Jacqui Oatley (BBC match reporter and commentator), Sam Gordon (director of finance and operations, Norwich City FC) She pointed out that while the FA is often castigated for its hidebound attitudes, it recently appointed a woman – Julie Harrington – as managing director at the new St George’s Park national training complex.

Jacqui Oatley was frank in her response. She feels that while the opportunities for women to attain senior positions do exist, the standards by which women are judged are more exacting. Always a fanatical follower of the game, she played football to a high standard in her youth until a serious knee injury put an end to her playing career.

Determined to make best use of her passion for the sport, she set about training as journalist and becoming a commentator.

She recalled the pressures at the start of her new career, covering a non-league match between Wakefield and Worksop Town – and how, to this day, a female journalist asking an overly trite question at a press conference can expect little comfort from her male colleagues. “We have so little margin for error,” she said. “When a man makes a similar mistake, it’s quickly forgotten – but when it’s a woman, it stands out like a beacon. The rules simply aren’t the same for a man and a woman. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.”

Sue Mott recalled how, when she started out as a reporter at top-flight football matches, she struggled to be taken seriously, but through a combination of guts and talent and determination she stuck it out and became rightly regarded as among the best football writers of her generation.

While Sam Gordon admitted to occasionally using “feminine wiles” to avoid minor irritations in the boardroom – and the odd speeding ticket – she and Margaret Byrne were united in appreciating the value of career experience gained outside the often topsy-turvy world of professional sport. Each came to the game from senior positions within other industries, and both feel that understanding a “real world” business has benefited them and their clubs.

Margaret Byrne trained as a solicitor, and joined Sunderland as their legal director before working her way up to the top job. Sam Gordon came to Norwich after several years working in a variety of senior roles with car giant Ford. While a background in a tough industry was an advantage when she was recruited into football, it posed fresh and hugely demanding challenges.

She admits to regularly working 80–90 hours a week in the cause of bringing financial stability to a club that faced massive challenges in restructuring following relegation from the stratospheric privilege of the Premier League, with the concomitant chaos that caused.

That Norwich are now once again in the top flight, on a firm footing and competing stylishly, is in no small measure down to her prodigious efforts. “I come from a background in the automotive industry,” she said, “where budgets are set and financial plans are consistent from year to year. Football came as bit of shock.

We’ve got the club into a much better state than it was – but it’s been

a slog, although I’m trying to ease back a bit on the hours I put in now.

“We still face having to plan two separate strategies for two different leagues. If we stay in the Premier League, we can operate in one way – if we end up back in the Championship, it’s a very different picture, even with parachute payments”.

Discussion moved on to consider how to overcome the various obstacles facing anyone wanting to work within the business surrounding football. Each panellist had their own stories to tell, each their own anecdotes to share. The common theme of the advice they imparted was to keep working, keep believing – and keep going.

“You have to be strong to work in sport,” Sam Gordon said. “To be a woman working in such a male environment, you need to be a strong woman. That doesn’t necessarily mean trying to behave like a man. Stay yourself, play to your own strengths – and have the guts to make decisions.”

The forum concluded with the panellists mingling with audience members – mainly the delighted female students. Already links are being established – business cards exchanged, networking underway – raising the prospect of some bright and ambitious UCFB undergraduates making inroads to the football business. Inspired by these powerful, gracious and witty women, they may become the next generation of the game’s administrators, marketers and media mavens. It might even happen in an environment where gender need not be the agenda.

ome 750 jobs will be created with the development of a new office and laboratory complex at Sci-Tech Daresbury, one of only two national science campuses in the UK, following the site’s successful bid for a £10 million Regional Growth Fund (RGF) grant.

The RGF award will enable the creation of the jobs at the science and innovation site over the next four years, allowing it to continue its rapid development and expansion. It will be matched by significant private investment and will be used to develop key aspects of the site and surrounding areas.

At the centre of the development plan is a proposal to build 60,000 square feet of new offices and laboratory space – provisionally called Techspace – over two phases. Funding will also be used to upgrade Sci-Tech Daresbury’s power supply system, to improve public transport links and to carry out environmental and infrastructural improvements. According to projections, the developments will lead to the creation of 750 jobs by 2017, 460 of them in the Techspace building.

Sci-Tech Daresbury, the national science and innovation campus between Liverpool and Manchester, is regarded as one of Europe’s leading centres for innovation and business. It assumed official status in April as one of the Government’s flagship Enterprise Zones. The site is a private-public sector joint venture between property company Langtree, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Halton Borough Council. The universities of Lancaster, Liverpool and Manchester are all active partners on the site.

John Downes, group chief executive of Langtree, was responsible for co-ordinating the successful RGF bid.

“This award is recognition of the potential of the site, its recent success and the strategic role it can play at a regional, national and international level,” Mr Downes said. “This investment will be used to accelerate our development plans and to continue the rapid growth already seen over the last two years, creating new high-quality commercial and laboratory space and creating hundreds of high-value jobs.”

Professor John Womersley, chief executive of the STFC, added: “The RGF grant will help us continue to develop Sci-Tech Daresbury as a centre for scientific excellence and innovation. It will provide crucial investment into the site and support the vision of the joint venture partners, helping us provide state-of-the-art labs and office space, and ensure long-term growth by improving the capabilities of the site.”

David Parr, chief executive of Halton Borough Council, said: “Sci-Tech Daresbury is a key economic asset not just for Halton but for the North West and, indeed, the UK. We will continue to expand the site in line with our strategic plan to move towards our vision of generating some 15,000 skilled jobs at the site over the next 20 years, alongside the creation of over one million square feet of new scientific facilities plus commercial, laboratory and workshop space for science and technology businesses.”

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

14

Business Insight

South Cumbria’s inward and outward achievements: focus point for Forum

Incomer laurels well earned by hardy Lakeland Plenty of economic hotspots provide southern comfort for incoming big names

By Mike Cowley

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ith a population of little more than 100,000, South Lakeland is punching way above its weight in terms of inward investment in the UK. Backed by the district council’s finely tuned economic development unit, the latest commercial scalp is the new GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) £350 million biopharm plant at Ulverston (population under 15,000), achieved against strong competition from three other GSK sites in the UK. While South Lakeland remains a predominantly rural area of 600 square miles, it has some economic hotspots that other authorities can only drool over. Previously best known for being the birthplace of Stan Laurel and home to the world’s widest and deepest canal, which saw hardy locals vault over it using poles – hence the sport of pole vaulting came into being – Ulverston has assumed a business mantle of late.

The historic market town has become the centre of excellence for a range of market-leading companies in their sectors, including Oxley, world leader in light-emitting diode (LED) lighting for military applications, and Siemens Tronic, manufacturer of subsea connectors for the oil and gas industry. Meanwhile, just along the road in Barrow-in-Furness, BAE Systems is still very much the world leader in nuclear submarine production.

All this, in turn, has naturally translated into jobs. GSK will be recruiting up to 700 new highly skilled employees in the leadup to the opening of its biopharm plant in 2020. BAE Systems in Barrow is currently looking to recruit upwards of 280 specialist engineers along with 130 apprentice positions, the firm’s highest intake in five years. And Siemens Tronic has also created 70 new positions, the biggest intake during its 30 years in business.

Neither has the rural economy been overlooked. More than 125 jobs and 40 businesses are expected to be created thanks to a £1m project which is part of the Rural Growth Network initiative in Sedbergh, Clawthorpe and Ulverston.

Oddly, though, with an unemployment rate of just 1.3 per cent, there is no real demand for jobs for local people. Tourism has been the traditional source of employment in the area and this has tended

offer numerous, if low-paid, jobs. New investment in high-tech manufacturing will translate into a higher wage economy.

What is needed, though, is to grow the population – and ensure it has the best skills – so it can continue to provide the level of services currently enjoyed in South Lakeland. The person whose role it to do just that is Councillor Ian Stewart, who holds the economy and enterprise portfolio.

With a myriad of other interested groups all pursuing similar goals locally, there has been a real danger of the initiatives being strangled at birth by layers of bureaucracy. Cllr Stewart has ensured that hasn’t happened, by effectively taking the lead. This is thanks to his wearing two political hats – one as a Liberal Democrat district councillor, the other as leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on Cumbria County Council. As such, he is well placed to co-ordinate activities between both.

A charismatic politician who admits to having “fingers in many pies”, Cllr Stewart has become the voice of both South Lakeland and Cumbria County Council during the inevitable and regular negotiations in London to “squeeze funds” from any possible source. “I make sure I go down to London a couple of times of month,” he says. “And they are always saying to me ‘Yes, Ian, there’s no need to say Cumbria because we know where it is, and there’s no need to say South Lakeland as well because we know where it is.”

Ian Stewart is an old-style barnstorming politician who will not be sidetracked from his objective of “bringing people together, locking doors when he has to, opening others and getting people through them”. This has seen him at the forefront of a number of initiatives including bringing a pilot scheme for broadband to South Lakeland for the benefit of both the population and business.

“A guy from BT Broadband lives on my patch, so I told him if he didn’t sort it out we wouldn’t fill in the potholes on his road,” he says. “That’s a joke really, but it was something like that.” Cllr Stewart has also been instrumental in ensuring the housing supply will be sufficient to meet the needs of and appeal to the new wave of chemists and engineers who will be heading for South Lakeland.

This has seen the removal of the historic Auction Mart from the centre of Kendal – where they started selling cattle and sheep 100 years ago – to make way for new quality housing. The market has been relocated to junction 36 of the M6, where it will form part of a new digital event centre which Cllr Stewart is hoping to use to woo the creatives away from MediaCityUK in Manchester. He already

has the slogan: “Would you rather live in Weaste or Witherslack?”

Ian Stewart’s long-term goal for South Lakeland is to increase the population of Kendal – the council’s administrative centre – from 25,000 to 50,000 and to double Ulverston’s 15,000 population, so providing the critical mass to underpin the services in the future. This will dramatically reverse a recent trend which has seen a net outflow of people from the district.

At the same time, he is seeking to redress a situation where the average annual wage for the district is just £19,000 – making it an asset-rich, income-poor area – when an engineer coming into the area can expect at least double that.

Not that he isn’t aware that there will be opposition along the way – not only from native South Lakeland residents but also from what are known as “offcomers”.

Over the past decade, Kendal has seen three applications for a business park thrown out and then gone to appeal – and lost.

“It is such a nice place that planning inspectors tend to say ‘no’,” Cllr Stewart says. ”Even the newcomers object to houses in the field next to where they have just moved into a new house themselves.” As a result, South Lakeland has gone down the Local Development Framework route, submitting a variety of site locations for both housing and business, effectively circumventing the pitfall of the traditional planning process.

Ian Stewart got his first taste for politics from his father, a maintenance engineer at Metropolitan-Vickers in Manchester.

Mr Stewart senior, who was a friend of the trade union leader Hugh Scanlon, managed to climb on to the bridge over the canal at Stretford to graffiti “Vote Labour” on the structure.

It was a Social Democratic Party rally at Maine Road which saw Ian Stewart get a party card, then switching to the Liberal Democrats when the time came.

He didn’t take it up seriously until selling his debt collection business – “I’ve been in debt all my life”, he often says – and moving to the shores of Morecambe Bay. The ducking and diving of politics started when he left his seat on the parish council and won election to the county council. In that role, he contacted the district council only to be told that they wouldn’t speak to him because he was with the county. He soon got round this by also winning a seat on the South Lakeland District Council.

Cllr Stewart had to call on all his political skills to support the bid by the local GSK management for the new biopharm plant in Ulverston. “When we knew this was on the cards,” he says, “and we moved in to actively support them in any way we

Rings of fire: Tradition lives alongside dynamism in Kendal

We’ve got some big names and the next step is to ensure we get their supply chains as well

Councillor Ian Stewart: political skills

could. The fact that this is an area of outstanding beauty was taken as read, but that was just the starting point.”

The bid package from South Lakeland included not only the offer of a simplified planning zone specifically for GSK’s biopharm investment, but also 1,000 new homes and two new business parks to be built close by. Schools were also high on the must-have list for the success of the bid, and fortunately those servicing South Lakeland – including the famous Sedbergh School – are graded as “outstanding” and have achieved academy status.

One of the tipping points for GSK to invest the £350m in Ulverston is understood to have been the securing of the services of a renowned French chemist.

“It appears that she insisted that her child would be able to continue the International Baccalaureate,” says Cllr Stewart.

“And fortunately for us this is available at both state schools and private schools here.”

The competition to secure the GSK plant was described as intense, with a number of sites being under consideration throughout Europe before the list was refined to four in the UK – the other three being Barnard Castle and two in Scotland. “We worked very closely with GSK and supported them with a local development order,” says Joanne Golton, regeneration manager on the South Lakeland team, “and just made sure that we did everything we possibly could to support the fantastic team at GSK.” So what next for South Lakeland District Council? “We’ve secured some big names, the next step is to ensure we get their supply chains as well,” says Cllr Stewart – who readily admits that the economic initiative he started will never end. “That suits me fine because I don’t finish things. I’m a bit of a butterfly in that regard.”

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

15

Business Insight

South Cumbria: Submarines

Underwater warriors defend Barrow’s historic buoyancy Already the area’s largest employer, BAE Systems plan to recruit 1,000 more sub-builders in the next decade

By J A Leah

B

arrow-in-Furness without BAE Systems Maritime – Submarines would be like the Lake District without sheep, so deeply is the company woven into the very fabric of the town.

With more than 5,000 on the payroll, BAE Systems is not only the Barrow’s largest employer, it provides the financial heartbeat for the local community with an annual spend of more than £20 million to firms within the local postcode.

The fact that Barrow has been successfully delivering world-class submarines to the Royal Navy for more than a century means that its pool of expertise is unrivalled, arguably anywhere in the world. Barrow built the Royal Navy’s first submarine – HMS Holland 1 – in 1901, and by 1914 the UK had the most advanced submarine fleet in the world, with 94 per cent constructed in the Cumbrian town.

The local shipyard, then owned

by Vickers, was also famous for the construction of some of the world’s most renowned vessels – including the liner SS Oriana and the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible. Not only did these vessels fly the flag for Barrow’s expertise round the world, but during the Second World War they also made the town a target for air raids, which killed 83 locals.

Barrow has developed a centre of engineering excellence which has had a beneficial ripple effect throughout the South Lakes, helping to attract the skills that also provide a lifeline to a range of other hightech industries now found in the region.

True, every blip in demand for submarines – such as at the end of the Cold War – meant the town itself caught an employment cold, but the order book has never been healthier and Barrow’s fortunes could not be set on a steadier course. Heavily into recruitment mode, BAE Systems is looking to take on upwards of 280 new and highly skilled employees and 1,000 in total over the next ten years.

Whereas Barrow has a past of which to be proud in ship and submarine building, nothing compares with what is happening today. The

town is home to the design, building, testing and commissioning of the Astute class – the Royal Navy’s latest and most capable generation of nuclear attack submarines whose sole objective is to keep Britain safe.

In total, seven of these state-ofthe-art vessels will make up the fleet, each comprising 7,400 tonnes of silent operation. The company is also the industry lead for the design of a new generation of submarines to carry the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent. The Initial Gate phase of this programme was approved by the Government in May 2011, and detailed design work is progressing ahead of the Main Gate decision in 2016.

To get an idea of what goes into a nuclear submarine built at Barrow, look at the specifications for HMS Ambush, the second Astute class attack submarine which is currently undergoing sea trials with the Royal Navy:

Her 97-metre length is greater than that of ten London buses.

When fully stored, she will displace 7,400 tonnes of sea water, equivalent to 65 blue whales.

Advanced nuclear technology means Ambush will never need to be refuelled.

She will be able to circumnavigate the world without surfacing and her dived endurance is limited only by the amount of food that can be stored and the endurance of the crew.

Ambush is able to manufacture its own oxygen and fresh water from the ocean.

The Astute class is the first Royal Navy submarine class not to be fitted with optical periscopes – instead they employ high-specification video technology. The images are delivered to the submarine control room via fibreoptic cables.

Armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, Ambush will be able to strike targets at up to 1,200 miles with pinpoint accuracy.

Around 70 miles of cabling and pipework is installed on board Ambush – enough to stretch from Bristol to Oxford.

The Sonar 2076 suite fitted on board Ambush has the processing power of 2,000 laptop computers.

It has the world’s largest number of hydrophones, providing the Royal Navy with the “biggest ears” of any sonar system in service today.

The command deck module, on which the sonar suite sits along with the other combat systems and platform control systems, weighs 220 tonnes.

The command deck module also contains areas for eating and sleeping. Each bunk is approximately two metres long by one metre wide by one metre high

Supersub: power in depth and has been fitted with its own power supply. The commanding officer is the only person to have a private cabin.

To improve conditions for the servicemen, wood-effect panelling has been incorporated to cover steel bulkheads and carpets have been added to the forward end passages in addition to the mess rooms and crew accommodation.

The kitchen is called the galley. On a ten-week patrol, the 100-strong crew of Ambush will get through, on average, 18,000 sausages and 4,200 Weetabix for breakfast.

A major milestone in the submarine programme is the point at which HSM Ambush will begin to test its range of capabilities. Ambush is the second in a planned class of seven submarines and she follows sister vessel HMS Astute to Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, where the first in class has been based since leaving BAE Systems in 2009.

John Hudson, managing director of BAE Systems Maritime – Submarines, said: “This is the culmination of a tremendous amount of hard work from everyone at BAE, our partners in the submarine enterprise and the hundreds of businesses in our supply chain network.

Nuclear powered submarines are ferociously complicated, and it would not have been possible to reach the stage we are at today without the valued input.”

Philip Dunne MP, the minister for defence equipment, support and technology, also gave his seal of approval. “Ambush and her sisters are the most powerful and advanced attack submarines ever ordered for the Royal Navy,” he said. “They are needed by the fleet and they will play a vital role in the future defence.”

Demand for engineers and apprentices to start a new generation

B

AE Systems has stepped up the recruitment campaign at its submarines business in Barrowin-Furness as demand for both skilled engineers and apprentices hits an all-time high.

In a bid to attract 150 professional engineers, the company is employing the latest in augmented reality technology to “deconstruct a submarine”. The company is looking for specialists in mechanical, electrical, design, power and propulsion, quality and nuclear, with the majority of the recruits to work on the Successor programme to design the next generation of submarines for the Royal Navy – the replacement for the Vanguard class.

It is also building the Astute class, which will equip the Royal Navy with its largest and most powerful fleet of seven attack submarines, each packed with cutting-edge technology. Using the tagline “Great ideas in the hands of great engineers”, the campaign is running in trade magazine Professional Engineering as a half-page feature, plus as video banners on a variety of relevant websites, including jobsite.co.uk and topengineeringjobs.co.uk In a first for the recruitment sector, targeted readers will receive a credit card-sized videopak, which will play the campaign film when opened.

Videopak uses a micro-thin LCD screen, allowing rich content to

be played in a whole new context.

By targeting these inserts at the highest-potential readers, the campaign will take an innovative and high-impact approach to attracting applicants.

Even those who do not receive the videopak will still get to see the technology come to life in a unique way. The print advertisements can be viewed on smartphones via the Aurasma Lite app, which uses advanced image and pattern recognition to take readers from the magazine page to the campaign video. The augmented reality effect will make the still images on the page start to move, transitioning seamlessly into the campaign film.

The film, which can be viewed on YouTube, shows an animated submarine rapidly deconstructed down to the smallest component.

The aim is to inspire potential applicants by showcasing the involvement of BAE Systems engineers in the awe-inspiring Astute project.

Meanwhile, the company is also taking on 136 apprentices, the highest intake for five years. The numbers are necessary to maintain skills unique to the maritime sector and to build all seven nuclearpowered Astute class submarines.

Barrow – the UK’s only submarine building yard – is also preparing for Successor – the replacement submarine to the Vanguard class which is currently scheduled to enter service in 2028.

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

16

Business Insight

South Cumbria: Biopharms

GSK takes the Ulverston cure for second time in sixty years

Staff experience has made the company a centre of excellence

By Mike Cowley

I

t was in 1946 that the company then known as Glaxo first succumbed to the undoubted charms of Ulverston.

The demand for penicillin to save the lives of wounded soldiers in the Second World War had been so great that the company’s directors took the decision to manufacture streptomycin on a large scale.

That needed a factory – and there were eight conditions to be met for choosing a site, as documents from the time show: 1 It had to be near the coast.

2 It had to be a large site for future expansion and to avoid any risk of contamination from neighbouring activities.

3 A good water supply was essential, sufficient to recycle three million gallons per day.

4 Clean air.

5 A rail link was essential.

6 On-site services.

7 Available labour to recruit and train.

8 Preferably with development area status to attract Government funding.

Ulverston ticked virtually all the boxes and the site was acquired from the Millom and Askam Iron Company for £24,000.

Some 64 years later, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – as the company is now called – was looking for a site for a new £350 million biopharmaceutical plant. It had committed to build this in the UK following an announcement in the 2012 Budget that a “patent box” was to be introduced to encourage investment in research and development and in related manufacturing.

This patent box introduced a lower rate of corporation tax on profits generated from UK-owned intellectual property.

With the biopharms unit to be a flagship operation for GSK in the UK – and destined to be an increasingly large part of the company’s portfolio – it was arguably even more important to make the right choice of site than it was for the first factory. Existing UK sites capable of accommodating the new biopharms facility were narrowed down to four: two in Scotland, at Montrose and Irvine, and two in England, at Barnard Castle and Ulverston.

Following an exhaustive review, Ulverston was chosen. GSK announced that it was committed to spending £500m in enhancing its manufacturing in the UK, with the lion’s share going to the Cumbria site.

Surprisingly – to an outsider at least – the criteria laid down in 1946 were virtually replicated for the latest plant. So Ulverston, having ticked the boxes the first time, again found itself in a strong position to get the nod.

There was, however, one other key factor that played a significant role in the decision – the expertise that the Ulverston plant had developed in sterile manufactur-

ing and sterility assurance. This was a must for the current plant’s production of active ingredients for antibiotics, some of these being the very last lifelines for critically ill patients. And this expertise will be equally – if not more – important when the biopharms plant comes into operation, contributing to breakthrough treatments based on the growing of living cells and the production, for example, of highly targeted antibodies – rather than the catch-all chemicalbased drugs currently manufactured.

Over many years, the Ulverston workforce, most of whom have been at the GSK plant for more than two decades, have developed skills in sterile manufacturing to the point where they are virtually unrivalled in the global pharmaceutical industry. Admittedly, a sterile plant could be built anywhere – but the sum total of the experience needed to staff it will always be a critical factor.

This experience has enabled GSK Ulverston to become a global centre of excellence for the manufacture of the active ingredients of oral and sterile antibiotics, which have helped save the lives of millions of people in over 100 markets. Whereas the local plant has been involved in the bulk production of active ingredients for a range of broad-based antibiotics over the years, as well as for medicines to treat illnesses such as HIV/AIDS and ’flu, its focus in recent years has been on cephalosporins.

Ulverston produces the key active lifesaving ingredient, which is then sent to other GSK plants – such as Barnard Castle – to be turned into antibiotic tablets for adults or suspension for children, or to Verona in Italy, where cephalosporins are made into vials used by hospitals to inject intravenously into patients.

The site supports a form of GSK antibiotic which is used on patients as a “last line of defence” when other treatments have failed. Contributing to such a vital product gives Ulverston staff heightened job satisfaction, knowing that they work in more than just a chemical plant. Staff regard their workplace not as a factory but as a life-saving production line, just as important as an operating theatre and where what they do really makes a difference.

However, it has not been an easy journey for the existing GSK plant in Ulverston in recent years, rather more of a rollercoaster ride. Increasingly intense competition in the antibiotic sector has seen to that. According to site director Greig Rooney, revenues were eroded significantly due to competition from generic products in the decade from the beginning of the millennium. GSK had to take some hard business decisions, and two major reviews saw the Ulverston workforce decrease from over 2,000 to today’s 250.

The good news is that growth returned to the cephalosporins market in 2010 and 2011, and GSK’s volumes have increased.

This has been achieved in part through a policy that calls for maintaining the trust of customers by always doing the right thing.

Improving affordability and selling more into emerging markets such as China and India has also paid off. Previously, most sales had been to Europe, which is now stagnant. The company has been helped

Now challenged to manage the upturn: site director and relatively new arrival Greig Rooney in this because physicians and patients in both China and India increasingly are looking for assurance of quality and safety in their drugs – and they have confidence in GSK. “What we are now seeing is the real strength of the GSK brand,” says Mr Rooney. “More and more people in countries like China are now demanding the best, whether it is in luxury goods or branded medicines. There is an expectation going right down the wealth pyramid that people want products they can trust, particularly when their lives are at stake.”

To take advantage of this, GSK in Ulverston has been maximising its efficiency, to ensure it can offer price reductions to its own factories – which in turn can pass on the reduction to customers. Volume is seen as the key to future success.

“It is a tough market, but we have our noses in front,” says Mr Rooney. “And we have a rolling three-year plan for each of our products, which will reduce prices aimed at boosting production. Our job now is to manage the upturn.”

The fact the Ulverston plant is enjoying a new lease of life – and is effectively on its way back – is reflected in that, according to Greig Rooney, GSK has reaffirmed its commitment to invest in the cephalosporin franchise. Whereas there will be a significant increase in production terms locally, it does not follow that there will be a comparable increase in the workforce – although some hiring has started again.

The real fillip in terms of jobs will come with the opening of the new biopharms plant in around 2020, with over 300 new high-value jobs anticipated – and with the potential to double this. Concern over the ability to attract highly skilled recruits has always been on the agenda for GSK in Ulverston – but, with the announcement of the new biopharms plant, it has forced its way back to the top.

Although building the plant has yet to start, the question of who will work there is already taxing the GSK management team in the Cumbrian town. Discussions are underway with leading universities in

What brings people here is not just the job.

You couldn’t find a better place to live

the North West to ensure there is a robust skills pipeline to meet the coming demand.

And GSK Ulverston is even looking much further ahead, by forging stronger links with local primary and secondary schools, increasing awareness of a rewarding future for youngsters in the pharmaceutical industry on their own doorstep. The company has also substantially increased its number of summer placement opportunities and has doubled its intake of apprentices to six this year.

“We can’t wait until 2020,” says Greig Rooney. “We have to start our journey now by building a pipeline. Investment in the Ulverston site has the potential to secure high-value manufacturing in the region at least to the middle of the century, and provides great opportunities for those looking for exciting and rewarding careers in a wide range of disciplines including life sciences, engineering and management. Ensuring local children and their parents realise what is on their doorstep is essential.”

Of course, as well as local talent, others will move to the area as the workforce expands. Someone who has never regretted relocating is Pat McIver, who arrived from the Wirral as a buyer a quarter of a century ago. He currently holds the post of site operational excellence leader and shortly will be moving full-time into biopharms implementation. “What has always attracted people to come and work here is not just the job,” Mr McIver says, “but you simply couldn’t find a better place to live anywhere.”

His views are echoed by Greig Rooney, who only arrived to take up his post as site director a year ago. “I love it – the people down here are really special,” he says. “They have a deep passion and a deep pride not only for the company but for the land. I guess it isn’t all that strange that the same reasons that Glaxo decided to come here 60-odd years ago are more or less the same as why GSK chose to bring the biopharms plant here – with the added benefit of our sterile expertise.”

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

17

Business Insight

South Cumbria: Ingenuity

Local brainwave that transformed the way oil and gas are captured from the seabed That ‘eureka’ moment is history, but Siemens Tronic now means a bright future for offshore industry and Ulverston, reports Tony Jackson

Remote controller: operator makes on-screen checks on subsea action

N

o one can recall the exact date Tronic had their “eureka” moment – and neither can the founder, electrical engineer John Alcock, now be asked, as he sadly died last year – but there is little doubt it transformed forever both the fortunes of the oil and gas industry and his home town of Ulverston.

Brilliantly simple in concept – as most revolutionary ideas are – what it effectively did was for the first time allow oil and gas control systems to operate on the seabed. So dramatic was the breakthrough 30 years ago that the embryo company John Alcock started in his garage – Tronic – went on to become a world leader in subsea connectors and has recently been acquired for £367 million by the world’s third-largest employer, Siemens.

Tronic can still be found today in Ulverston – not in a garage but in an extraordinary purpose-built unit, with the greenest of green credentials. With an air filtration system of hospital standard, it offers an environment that would be a pace-setter in Silicon Valley. As such, it is the company’s statement that it wants the world’s best engineers in its sector – and those who aspire to be – to feel at home.

Starting out as an apprentice in the Vickers Shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness in 1958, John Alcock worked on HMS Dreadnought, the UK’s first nuclear submarine – and subsequently moved to the Lister factory in his home town where he worked for seven years before setting up Tronic.

It was while working on remote operating vehicles (ROVs) for the fledgling oil

and gas industry that Tronic spotted an opportunity, in that the offshore industry faced extreme difficulties when putting operating systems on the seabed because of connectivity problems. As a result, everything had to go up topside, to huge and expensive platforms sitting over each well where all the valves and specialist equipment had to be housed.

Tronic came up with the way to connect equipment underwater, with an idea of how to “pressure balance” a connector, maintaining the same pressure inside and out so the seal didn’t “blow”. The principle – still adhered to this day and referred to as the controlled environment principle – involves maintaining a pressurised insulating environment while keeping the water out, so creating equal pressure on either side.

With the problem of undersea connectors solved, this opened up a new and much more cost-effective way of extracting both oil and gas from the seabed.

Here the story gets even more complicated, however – so over to Mike Marklove, director of technology at Tronic (now called Tronic, a Siemens Subsea Business), to cut through the technical jargon for non-engineers.

“You can imagine how much an oil field development would cost if a platform was needed for every well,” Mr Marklove says, “so the state of play today is we are actually getting rid of platforms – you don’t need them any more. What you actually have now are ships, called FPSOs [floating platform, storage and offloading vessels], that sit on the surface.

Then down below you have subsea tree structures containing multiple valves for each oil well, linked by connectors on the seabed to subsea control systems.

“Oil is produced from multiple locations from all over the field. All of the electrical systems, all those computers, sensors and valves used to control flows, are down there now linked by our connectors. Oil from each well is passed through a flowline, passed through a manifold to mix it all together, put it into a riser and that goes up to the vessel. That’s how it’s done today and our products are a crucial part of the system.”

In the 1970s, deep water drilling meant working in depths of around 100 metres – but today, in places such as the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Brazil, this can be 3,000 metres and more. Siemens Tronic connectors can handle virtually any depth or temperatures that we see today, and even allow working under ice from a considerable distance – which is why they will play a crucial part in the development of technology that Siemens is currently progressing for deeper water and higher temperatures.

As a result of the massive investment required by the operators to develop subsea fields, the oil and gas industry is naturally risk averse to changing technology quickly, and it took about ten years before the company was firmly established as a supplier. Today, almost all of the sales are to oil and gas companies.

Deep thinker: technology director Mike Marklove

However, the fact that Tronic is now part of the Siemens subsea division – even though the Ulverston company had a full order book at the time of acquisition – seems certain to ensure that the only way is up. “The backing we have from Siemens is very important to us,” says Mike Marklove. “We are already talking to them about extending our portfolio of products into areas. We are even branching out into non-oil and gas sectors such as the renewable energy industry. It is a very exciting time.

With the acquisition, Siemens has recognised we are a market leader in our sector – so, with their active support, we have everything to play for.”

But why has Tronic never moved from Ulverston, when most of their UK customers are based in Aberdeen?

“We’ve never thought seriously of moving,” Mr Marklove says. “The idea has occasionally been raised about moving closer to Aberdeen – but, as the company has grown, the specific skills have grown alongside it. This has been a location that has served us very well. It is also a very nice place to live.”

Then, of course, a move away from Ulverston is one thing the founder would never have wanted. “None of us forget,” says Mr Marklove, “that we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be working here today in this successful company in a wonderful place if it wasn’t for one local engineer and visionary – John Alcock.”

Flying the flag for engineering and a better future for Ulverston

T

he Siemens Tronic management team is not only passionately committed to the future prosperity of the company, but also to the town of Ulverston itself and the South Lakeland area. If the team have their way, the region will become a mecca for engineering, attracting the best and brightest in the country to work not only for them but for other major players in the area such as GlaxoSmithKline, Oxley and BAE Systems in Barrow-in-Furness.

The active pursuit of engineering talent is in the interests of everyone in an area which is heavy on natural beauty and low in unemployment. Tronic, a Siemens Subsea Business, announced earlier this year that it was to cre-

ate 70 new jobs in Ulverston, marking the biggest intake of employees ever in the history of the company. But it will not end there.

With 379 people currently on the Ulverston payroll, the last recruitment offer for the 70 jobs brought in 1,400 CVs and recruitment is continuing at the rate of ten people per month.

Tronic, a Siemens Subsea Business also anticipates a further round of recruitment in the new year, bringing its projected headcount to 450 by April 2013.

To ensure they get the quality they want, the company is constantly looking not only to showcase its talents but to get its message out to prospective engineering candidates. With engineers known to be interested in outdoor

pursuits – and Cumbria is certainly not short of these – the company recently took out an advertisement in Mountain Biking magazine which brought in a flood of interest.

Yet Tronic, a Siemens Subsea Business is well aware that to grow a real pipeline of engineering talent, it has to start closer to home.

That is why they have been working closely with Ulverston Victoria High School to encourage students to take up the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects that will lead into engineering – in relevant areas of design and technology – and to dispel the “oily rag” image of engineering.

“Of course this has got our interests at heart, but also the local community,” says

Wayne Singleton, the company’s human resources manager, tasked with finding a constant flow of talent. “We want to keep young people in the area by presenting them with the opportunities to work. Over the last ten years there seems to have been a mass exodus of 16- to 24-year-olds out of the area.

And we need to halt that, not only for us as a company but for the future of Ulverston and the surrounding area.”

No one would have been more pleased with this approach than Tronic founder John Alcock – a man not only dedicated to recruiting quality engineers, but one of the first members of the Ulverston Better Town Team.

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

18

Business Insight

South Cumbria: Illumination

Early vision for lamps LED to world success Oxley Developments has become a world leader by shining the light of innovation

By Michael Cape

D

rive a few minutes along the coast road from Ulverston and there, high on a hill with a commanding view of the ancient market town, you will see in giant letters “Oxley Developments”.

Not quite on the scale of “HOLLYWOOD”, but bearing testimony to this having been one of the most important companies not only in the area but in the UK for many years.

Far from Hollywood in style, Oxley is more a tribute to the best of British ingenuity with a touch of Downton Abbey thrown in. Tradition still matters here, and different-coloured ties are awarded to directors and long-serving employees.

The company may be a world leader in high technology surrounding LED (lightemitting diodes) lighting, but due deference is always paid to the ways of the late founder in what remains a private company.

Robert Frederick Oxley was born in Antwerp in 1909 of English parents, a descendent of Florence Nightingale. It was the gift of a pocket torch by a German uncle which sparked his interest in all things electrical, and he built his first radio while still a schoolboy in France and carried out unlicensed Morse transmissions between Paris and New Zealand, narrowly escaping detection by the police.

At age 16, the young Mr Oxley was not only writing articles for a wireless magazine but also building – and selling – receivers from ex-army stock. He even patented a novel form of loudspeaker.

Starting work in Paris, he was headhunted by the Telegraph Condenser Company (TCC) in London, joining them as development engineer. But speaking five languages fluently and with a working knowledge of several more, he was rapidly promoted to export manager.

Never one to miss an opportunity, he negotiated a 2.5 per cent commission for himself on any large order he landed from Philips in the Netherlands – a company with whom TCC had never before done business – and secured a £60,000 deal, a massive sale in 1932.

By the time war broke out, after a stint translating foreign broadcasts for the BBC, Mr Oxley had set up a company manufacturing small components for the communications industry. His talent was spotted by the Ministry of Aircraft Production, which led to a special mission to Paris to secure German-made ceramic capacitor parts vital for the British radar

network, just before the city fell to the advancing German armies.

The Germans soon got their own back, destroying his London office and workshop during the 1940 blitz. As his work by then was deemed to be of vital national importance, he was ordered to move to a safe area. Ulverston was his choice, and he set up a small laboratory.

By the early 1950s, the component company had outgrown the town centre premises, so Mr Oxley headed for Priory Park, a large Victorian house in a parkland setting. This not only became his business headquarters when he added workshops, assembly lines and a laboratory, but also the family home.

Self-sufficiency – something learnt during the lean war years – coupled with an obsession for quality control and often a lack of funds, saw him making his own machinery whenever possible. Ceramic grinding machines, turned parts, blow moulding packs and a printing machine were designed and built in-house. He even constructed a working radio tuner out of Meccano.

By the time of his death aged 79, Mr Oxley had 145 patents registered in his name and a further 75 in that of the company. While most of these were in the telecommunication component fields, his Oxlox hair cream was far removed from radar. So was his Oxley electric Glowlog fire, at least one of which survives: it is used to this day at Priory Park and is tested – and passed – each year.

Mr Oxley’s description of himself has also stood the test of time: “A physicist by training, an engineer and inventor by vocation and a businessman by necessity.” A quintessential English gentleman, elegant and courteous, he commanded and received respect. In the early 1980s, each time he and his wife Ann returned to Priory Park, management and staff would welcome their homecoming.

Much, obviously, has changed in the intervening years – Oxley Developments remains a highly successful components business but has also evolved into the world leader in LED technology for military applications. Robert Frederick Oxley may have had a vision of the potential for LED when he established a company making lamps in the Isle of Man as far back as 1978. It was certainly the company’s reputation built up during the war years that helped smooth the way when they started to develop LED technology applications for the defence sector.

Oxley was and still is a brand that can be trusted. Whereas LED had been developed in Japan two decades earlier, it was Oxley who made it a truly viable alternative to traditional incandescent lighting for military applications, the unstable glowing wire technology causing a huge failure rate. The company made a breakthrough in power driver technology, based on some 40 years’ excellence in electrical components and clever use

Leading lights: Managing director Peter Cotterill and sales director Andy Bednarek

Today’s technology moves very fast and we try to stay as close to the front as we can

of software to ensure that the LEDs do not overheat.

What makes Oxley the world leader is also the way it integrates LEDs into systems designed for military use such as night vision – not making the helmet or goggles, just the LED units that are compatible with them. This, together with a constant upgrading to meet the everstringent certification requirements that govern the military and aerospace sector, has created the demand for the company products today.

To get an appreciation of what they do, every time you land in an Airbus, an Oxley component ensures the undercarriage comes down safely. This degree of scientific excellence is why Saab made Oxley the preferred supplier of all external lighting for the Gripen, the next generation of fighter for the Swedish Air Force. To get this contract, Oxley faced an unusual hurdle. Although the LED lights they were offering would last 10,000 hours, Saab wanted this reduced to 4,000 hours, half the flying life of the Gripen, to enable them to be brighter.

Oxley complied and so effectively doubled its revenue from each aircraft.

Deeply involved in this latest chapter of the Oxley success story are managing director Peter Cotterill, sales and marketing director Andy Bednarek and technical director Darren Cavan – all with backgrounds in mechanical rather than electrical engineering. Two are relative newcomers in Oxley terms – Mr Cotterill has been running the firm for six years, Mr Bednarek joined two years after him – and are well aware that their brand is built on a history of excellence.

“At the time I arrived, we were unable to satisfy anti-collision regulations in a single light head because LEDs were not

physically bright enough.” recalls Peter Cotterill. “Since then, LED technology has become more efficient and as a result brightness has simply kept on getting better and better – just look at what you can now buy at B&Q, for example – and we can now meet the regulations with a single light. We put a lot of time and effort into watching LED technology movement. It is a very fast-moving technology and we are trying to stay as close to the front as we can.”

Andy Bednarek, who spent 23 years in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers en route to Oxley, is responsible for the international sales that account for more than half the business – although this does not include the United States, where Oxley Inc, the sister company, has been based since the time of Mr Oxley.

Darren Cavan joined Oxley after an apprenticeship in the Barrow shipyard.

He has built an 18-year career through most of the company’s departments, including Oxley Inc, before joining the Oxley board in 2009.

The success enjoyed in recent years sees Oxley in the running for the prestigious Elektra Awards, where it is up against some of the giants of the LED sector worldwide including Cree, the leading manufacturer and supplier of LED components. This comes shortly after the company celebrated its 70th birthday last September, when memories of the founder Robert Frederick Oxley were very much to the fore.

“It was the reputation he built up over the years that has provided the platform for our recent success,” says Peter Cotterill. “The Oxley name is an established brand and one we are very proud of.”

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

19

Business Insight

South Cumbria: Education

Payback time for Furness College Principal and team plan new proactive era to better serve Barrow’s ambitions

By Mike Cowley

W

hen Anne Attwood arrived in Barrow-in-Furness in 2001 to join the staff of Furness College, she found it housed in a shanty town of prefab buildings designed with a lifespan of 15 years but which had already been up for 20. Not that the previous location had been much better, in that it was spread around five sites, a mainly run-down collection of former school buildings and council offices.

The college has been around for 105 years, and its long association with the all-important local shipbuilder meant that Mrs Attwood first saw it as “an extension of the yard” – and because much of its activity involved their apprentices, this was not too far off the mark.

Furness College has always mirrored commercial activity in Barrow, providing a pipeline of support skills to keep the wheels of local industry turning in what has been described as “the Chicago of the North”. The name is not due to the crime rate, but because its workforce has always been predominantly blue collar – Barrow has a higher proportion of people involved in manufacturing than anywhere else in the UK. Crime there is almost non-existent in a close-knit community isolated at the end of the Furness peninsular, where the local daily paper, the North West Evening Mail, once reported: “Shed broken into, nothing taken.”

Now Anne Attwood sits in the principal and chief executive’s office of a gleaming £43 million glass-and-copper building with water on three sides, a building constructed with the support of a board made up of representatives of most of the key industries they serve. From there she has a panoramic view of all the locations where the college has been in the past, and this has helped to give her a clear vision of where she wants to take it in the future.

So new is the building, in fact, that they will not be moving into the final stage un-

til next year – but Mrs Attwood and her team are already starting a five-year plan that will see the college become proactive, rather than reactive as it has in the past, to better serve Barrow.

The whole ethos remains one of bringing students closer to the workplace, so training to provide a pipeline to local industries is key. Here is a college that knows what the town it serves needs for economic development.

Historically, its services have mirrored the fortunes of local industry – honing the skills of apprentices during the good times, retraining people during the downturns. If you want to know what has happened to all the apparently forgotten apprentice schemes in the UK, look no further than Furness College: it currently has more than 700 apprentices on its books, a huge number for a catchment area of 70,000.

Many of these, of course, come from BAE Systems and form a significant part of a major student contingent of 700 which attends weekly from the company, taking a range of the courses available from entry level to honours degree. The continuing importance of the link between college and company is demonstrated by the fact that a part mock-up of a submarine showing some of the different compartments can be found within the new building.

Apprentices have always been a major part of the intake at Furness College, particularly those from the shipyards, with a number of BAE Systems senior engineers having been down that route. Not that everyone who has attended a BAE Systems apprentice course at the college ends up with a career working in submarines.

Deputy principal Mark Nicholson was himself a former BAE Systems apprentice before he switched course and opted for a career in education.

However, there has also been an apprentice influx in more recent years from other specialist sectors such as LED (light-emitting diode) technology, subsea, energy and sustainable construction – all reflecting a major upsurge in activity in these fields. And not to be left behind, Furness College has set up its own apprentice scheme with a current intake of four.

Whereas the emphasis is predominantly on engineering – more than 50 per cent of its activity – the college does offer practical skills in all sectors which could

Top team: Principal Anne Attwood, her deputy Mark Nicholson, and training director Marjorie Pickthall help business in the area. It does not offer classes in basket-weaving or flowerarranging, however: this is an educational institution that is, in the main, developing practical skills for those starting employment or wishing to move up the career ladder.

Furness College is renowned for upskilling, with some students having been attending part-time courses for a decade as they improve their qualifications to progress within their companies. “We’ve grown up together and being out on a peninsula like this, that’s what works,” says Anne Attwood. “Our governors wanted our newbuild to be very much a drop-in centre for continuous learning.”

Such is the input of apprentices – or those wishing to improve their qualifications mid-career – that the usual rules about job-finding do not apply here. The normal yardstick – of where people are six months after graduation – is meaningless for Furness College, in that it is virtually 100 per cent as they are almost all in work by then.

The five-year plan for the college will see it move from passive to active support for local industry, and Mrs Attwood and her team see this as payback time for the support they have received from the community. Part of the spend on the newbuild has been allocated for the purpose, and has seen the college establish an innovation hub which includes sterile working, sustainable construction, prototyping, research, reverse engineering, business incubation and an engineering development workshop.

They even have a 3D printer “sitting in a cupboard downstairs”, a wind turbine transition piece and a virtual welding machine, all either in play or ready to come into use at the appropriate moment. All these services will be offered as added value to the major companies they already serve with vocational training, seeing the college move from a support role into guidance.

Meanwhile, looking at the future demand for biopharm skills from GlaxoSmithKline in Ulverston, contact has been made with a college based in North Carolina – the US centre of biopharm activities – to see how relevant courses can be developed.

The college has also opened its own spa – there are lots of spas in hotels in the nearby Lake District but no training for people who run them. There is also a

Furness College – key facts

The college currently has 300 engineering undergraduates – a bigger intake than of most universities that offer engineering courses.

The college is currently developing postgraduate courses with the University of Cumbria.

Ten years ago, the number of 16- to 18-year-olds on full-time courses was 427; this year there will be 1,000.

The number of adults taking full-time courses has grown by 50 per cent.

There are currently 34 weekly classes in craft engineering.

The current student intake is 5,000 – and this will increase by 50 per cent in the next five years.

What other college can you think of where behaviour issues are so low that it doesn’t have security guards?

sports hall partly funded by the England and Wales Cricket Board, plus catering facilities – the list of new add-ons seems endless, but each has a specific role to play in the college’s contribution to the community.

Neither have they forgotten Barrow itself. The college has linked up with BRE – the Building Research Establishment – to develop a course on renovation, given that the town has a significant proportion of dilapidated properties over a century old.

Furness College has already taken the initiative on the work experience front – developing a database of willing employers and matching them to children from all the schools in the area in a move designed to stimulate even more apprentice activity. And with a constant eye on the future, the college has hired three research lecturers, forming a platform for an additional service offer to local employers.

This has already paid dividends in the form of a breakthrough by one of its former students – Neil Brace, a Sellafield commissioning engineer – who used the final year of a first-class BEng (Hons) course in electrical and electronic engineering at Furness College to develop electronic pulses to scan ground and detect landmines. He returned to the college to receive a special award from no less a dignitary than Sir Bobby Charlton.

“What better illustration can we have of our mission which is to deliver education and skills to inspire and change lives,” says Anne Attwood. “That’s why the work is a joy and so is Barrow as a place to live. What other college can you think of where behaviour issues are so low that it doesn’t have security guards?”

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

20

Business Insight

South Cumbria: Leadership

What price a masterclass in becoming masterful?

By Chris Nelson

Global market for leadership training

I

t is a cardinal rule of business that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. So when the Centre for Leadership Performance (CfLP) was created two years ago with the promise of business improvement workshops, bargain-priced short courses and free masterclasses delivered by high-flying speakers, everyone looked for the catch.

But there isn’t one. The CfLP is a notfor-profit limited company set up with joint funding from Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) – which runs the Sellafield nuclear site – and Britain’s Energy Coast Campus. It is based within the Energus facility in Lillyhall, near Workington.

The aim is to provide the sort of training, mentoring and support that helps business leaders develop and do their jobs better, which in turn leads to more successful businesses, more jobs and more prosperity within the county. It is a way for the nuclear industry to put something back into the county which has for so long supported it, and of building a more sustainable and successful business community.

In practical terms, that translates into the fact that for the price of a pub lunch for two, local business people have been able to attend short courses for which the ticket price would normally run into hundreds of pounds. Masterclasses have covered topics including growth, leading teams and collaboration, and have featured well-known speakers including Dragons’ Den regular Duncan Bannatyne and Barbara Cassani, the first chair of the London 2012 Olympic bid and founder of budget airline Go Fly. Other speakers have included Olympic cycling coach Dan Hunt and Gulf War Tornado pilot John Peters, whose capture and torture in Iraq gives him a unique perspective to share with his audiences on coping and decision-making under pressure.

They are the headline-grabbing topflight speakers designed to attract attention, and have worked remarkably well, with the CfLP earning glowing reviews for its programme of events. That activity is now set to extend south to engage with the wider business community around Ulverston and Barrow-in-Furness, and along the A590 corridor towards the M6.

R Team players at the Centre for Leadership Performance, from left: leadership development consultant Helen Sharpe, business administrator Rachel Rudd, managing director Lesley Bowen, marketing and business development manager Sarah Glass, and business manager - customised solutions and new designs - Al Mather The CfLP may be not-for-profit, but it needs to be self-sustaining – so the team cannot just offer bargain-priced development courses. But what the small team is determined to deliver is value-for-money business advice, guidance and support that is low on jargon and high on producing a recognisable return on investment.

Managing director Lesley Bowen wants to take the CfLP forward by developing its bespoke intervention products designed to use the best resources from a collaboration of regional and national suppliers, and most importantly to respond to the leadership needs of the region.

“I aim to develop the organisation to the point that it is self-sustaining with the profit generated being invested back into development opportunities for Cumbrian business leaders,” she says. “That means broadening the reach of the Centre. We have made a great start in West Cumbria, but now we want to engage with more businesses – both large and small – to deliver the sort of support they need. Those businesses need to engage with us and tell us what they need to succeed, and to improve their management skills and capabilities.”

The CfLP has worked hard over the past two years to offer local businesses best-inclass management and leadership training on their doorstep, and has developed links with partners including the University of Cumbria, the University of Central Lan-

cashire, Lakes College, Aston University, Common Purpose and Lancaster University.

“We take the term ‘business community’ quite literally,” says the CfLP’s business manager Al Mather, “and aim to encourage businesses across Cumbria to do the same. Members of a community support each other, they share information and experience, they learn from one another – and when necessary operate as a cohesive force for the good of every member of that community.

“We have already had events where people from different business sectors have come together in workshops where they have shared different experiences and problem-solving techniques. We have had senior managers from multinational companies sitting next to sole traders and the heads of small family businesses to exchange knowledge, and they have each gained from that encounter.

“Our activities range from workshops, masterclasses and seminars to coaching and one-to-one mentoring, work shadowing and team building,” Ms Mather added.

“But they are all designed to be grounded in the day-to-day challenges facing managers and business leaders. We are all about good business management, and businesses learning best practice from one another.

The Centre for Leadership Performance website is at www.cforlp.org.uk

‘Good leadership should inspire and excite...’

N

uclear Management Partners, which comprises URS, AMEC and AREVA, is spending £22.5m over five years to deliver social and economic benefits within Cumbria, and the Centre for Leadership Performance is a vital part of that programme according to NMP general manager Graham McKendry.

“Leadership is too often confused with management and bureaucracy”, he says.

The purpose of good leadership is to

excite and inspire others to achieve higher performance, and the difference in performance across public, private and third sector organisations often comes down to the quality of leadership.

“The companies that make up NMP represent a combined workforce of more than 160,000 people worldwide and we consider it a priority to develop those people, often by sending them off on courses and training.

“A lot of the public sector organisations and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) within Cumbria simply don’t have the resources to undertake leadership development, so we wanted to bring high-quality facilities and people to the county. Through the masterclasses and short courses, I believe we are creating opportunities to improve and fine-tune our local leaders today and for the future, and the whole of Cumbria can benefit as those people fully realise their potential.”

ob Rimmer believes that the Centre for Leadership Performance could have a national or international future as a centre for excellence in helping to hone to skills of business leaders.

Mr Rimmer is director of the Energy Coast Campus, which was founded in 2008 by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the University of Cumbria to develop education and training to support the development of Cumbria’s energy economy.

“We identified a need to provide more support for business leaders at all levels across Cumbria,” Mr Rimmer says, “and the Centre has done a fantastic job in creating opportunities for people to benefit from inspirational speakers and truly innovative events and activities. It is not just big companies that

have been engaged by the Centre’s programme – they have reached out to involve enterprise of all shapes and sizes, and local schools and colleges to give students a vision of how becoming our future leaders.

“Our vision does not stop at the county’s borders. Just as the companies and organisations involved in the Energy Coast span disciplines around the globe, so the Centre is developing solutions capable of influencing leadership development in the energy sector that are transferable on an international scale. That will help to sustain a centre of excellence to support business here in Cumbria.”

Masterclasses hit their mark

U

nexpected – that is how Peter Roberts, site manager at Eastman Chemical Workington Limited, describes the surprising impact of the masterclass he and his team attended when Gulf War pilot John Peters talked about his brutal captivity in Iraq.

The way Squadron Leader Peters used his personal story to provide his audience with genuine insight into making decisions under pressure was expected, but Mr Roberts did not anticipate that he and his team would have the benefit of attending that sort of event in the furthest reaches of Cumbria.

“I think the Centre for Leadership Performance is a terrific asset,” Mr Roberts says, “and the quality of the input they offer is remarkable, not just in terms of the masterclasses but other short courses and activities which I have attended with members of the Eastman management team. To have that available right on our doorstep is hugely beneficial.

“The real test of this sort of initiative is if it stays with you and helps you to do your job better, and that has certainly been our experience. You learn something new from each of these events, you take something away and even if you apply small lessons as you go along it makes a difference.”

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

21

Business Insight

South Cumbria: Manufacturing

Where regional energy meets global ambition Enterprising firms make county more manufacturing hub than tourist magnet

By Chris Nelson

T

he flare of the three natural gas processing terminals, operated

by Centrica Energy, stands like a beacon above Barrow-in-Furness, symbolising the area’s leadinglight role in ensuring that Britain’s energy security-of-supply needs are being met day in, day out.

Some 20 miles offshore, a muscular team member from Ropax Ltd – a new firm typical of those created by local entrepreneurs to develop their own niche servicing UK and global clients – is undertaking rope access testing of gas platforms. Such scenes signal clearly that Cumbria boasts ranks of enterprising firms delivering top-class service to customers.

It may be set in pretty country, but the county’s importance as a global manufacturing base dwarfs the tourism industry that most of the British people normally associate with it. Offshore energy on South Cumbria’s doorstep offers enormous potential. Today, 12 per cent of gas supplies come through the Rampside sites near Barrow.

More is set to follow from Cairn Energy’s drilling on its Merrow prospect early next year, should the company discover gas. It has also led to Barrow port hosting a cluster of three offshore windfarm support bases promising job security for 100 to 200 people for 20-plus years through DONG Energy and Vattenfall.

But much of the county’s related activity is global. Wherever in the world energy is being exploited, South Cumbria’s engineering and design skills are in use. In Barrow, Schlumberger’s Diamould is designing and manufacturing subsea power connectors for use in the deep waters off Africa. Siemens in Ulverston has 400 people providing specialist connection systems to Brazil, the Far East and the Gulf of Mexico.

Acrastyle, also of Ulverston, is linked with India as it produces electrical control and switchgear components and systems. Gyrodata Drilling Automation has for many years operated its worldwide research and development manufacturing base in South Cumbria – delivering sophisticated rotary steerable drilling systems that withstand high temperatures and underground pressures while transmitting real-time drill data to the surface – and its next venture is a massive expansion on a recently acquired seven-acre site.

But energy-saving is just as crucial as energy-generation. Adrian Rawlinson,

Marl International’s managing director, advocates the same market stimulus for adoption of energy-saving lighting from the UK Government as we see in the USA, South Korea, Canada and Australia.

They are driving demand by requiring public buildings and traffic infrastructure to make use of solid-state lighting.

Marl – in Ulverston – and Lumier of Barrow are just two examples of a cluster of innovative solid-state lighting companies transforming the way our rooms are lit, while railway safety has improved significantly thanks to the use of LED (lightemitting diode) lights.

Helping the transformation of the Furness economy so it can be a highperforming business centre supporting sustainable new and multinational businesses is the long-established Furness Enterprise Partnership. Its strategic direction – helping firms to access money and markets and facilitating job creation – is set by major partners such as BAE Systems and Kimberly-Clark, along with local authority leaders, financial services directors and small businesses.

Widely acknowledged as the “first choice for business support” in South Cumbria, the partnership has just been given a lead role from the UK Government in helping to “unleash growth in coastal Furness” through a new Big Lottery-provided Coastal Communities Fund grant.

“Since 1991 we have helped companies to create over 10,000 jobs and tackle the legacy of very large-scale industrial redundancies that occurred in the first half of the 1990s and again from 2000 to 2005,” says the partnership’s Stuart Klosinski.

“Today, our focus is on partnering with Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, the Chamber of Commerce, UKTI [UK Trade and Investment] and business leaders to attract growing companies and help established ones by strengthening supplier networkers, stimulating innovation and enabling them to recruit the sophisticated skills they need.”

Company secretary Ian Tillotson adds: “Employer-employment partnership also enables companies to tap into the local labour pool, people leaving the armed forces and graduates returning to South Lakeland. Coaching that ensures many who go on to set up new businesses enjoy one of the highest survival rates in the country is integral to our support menu.”

Two recent studies, one by Ekosgen, one for the BBC/Experian, demonstrated how much the South Lakeland and Furness economies have changed. Ekosgen’s NW index of economic resilience points to the Barrow economy being the second most improved over a decade - due to a high business startup rate and stronger business sustainability creating a deepening and broadening of the business base.

The BBC “Local Growth Study” points to Furness having a large number of “high growth champion businesses – young, rapidly growing firms with directors showing entrepreneurial skills, an appetite for business risk and a real international outlook”.

It adds that “Barrow has a high proportion of businesses with high growth potential and potential to make a big difference to the local economy.”

A diverse range of businesses is emerging. Bob Heron, local director of Ametek, Inc – a US-owned company that designs, integrates and delivers through-life support of connectors and cable systems – highlights why South Cumbria is a great place for inward investment. “We came into the area with the initial intention of acquiring a factory,” he says. “Instead, we developed a supply chain network to supply key customers.

“The teaming up of St Andrews Engineering for precision engineering components and Optech Fibres for fibre optic cabling manufacture, enabled the two SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprise] to gain from technology transfer from the States, so avoiding the need to manufacture there. Our customer BAE Systems benefited from close-by, off-site design test [product] facility that’s helping to deliver a world-beating sonar system for the Royal Navy.”

Farmers join forces to sell Another success story is Lake District Farmers, a co-operative operating from Lindal in Furness, just south of Ulverston, that enables 50 Lake District farms to supply lamb, veal and beef to leading London restaurants.

It’s all about new ways of thinking.

Structural Science Composites, owned

by Harm Tegelaars – an Anglo-Dutch investor from Kent – has evolved a suite of composite manhole covers and roadside grates to replace cast iron products with the more resilient, durable, cost-effective solutions that utilities are now demanding.

Rope trick: Muscular team member gets access to rig

Today our focus is on working with our partners to attract growing companies and help them find the skilled people they need

The appeal of working in high-tech innovative firms attracts highly qualified people to South Cumbria. For families and partners concerned about availability of jobs locally, Furness Enterprise is piloting a unique iPad/mobile phone app solution in association with software specialists Furness Internet. “We’ve taken soundings from employers as diverse as GlaxoSmithKline and CGP Books,” says Furness Internet managing director, Edward O’Keefe, “to come up with a ‘Jobs for you and your partner’ app that gives online instant access in one place to the fullest list of job vacancies on offer across a whole range of sources.

“We have added a ‘Find it in Furness’ app and website portal to help companies in and from beyond Furness to find upcoming tenders and capital projects. If we can make it easier for firms to bid for work, their order books will grow and the people will come in – it will put more drive into the economy.”

Looking ahead, there are some exciting emerging business prospects, including:

Submarine construction – A positive decision due in 2016 to re-equip the submarine fleet that carries the strategic deterrent will create 1,000 new jobs until the 2030s.

Continued growth of antibiotic manufacture and introduction of biopharmaceutical production with a £350 million investment scheduled by GlaxoSmithKline between 2014 and 2018.

Development of the port of Barrow’s star role in servicing offshore windfarms with addition of a fourth service base for ScottishPower Renewables.

Moog Inc’s growth following its acquisition of Tritech, specialists in sidescan sonar.

Conclusion? South Cumbria is energetically demonstrating that it is a bright beacon for British manufacturing success across the UK and around the world.

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

22

Business Insight

Forum

Ulverston’s old charm pulls in new tech names

It’s far from sleepy or funny when it comes to facing modern challenges

By Mike Cowley

T

he Times Forum on the future of Ulverston considers how to retain youth in the area, issues relating to isolation, how to attract more high-tech companies – and the thorny issue of broadband Ulverston is a sleepy market town of fewer than 15,000 residents in South Cumbria. But it has a secret – and one that it is eager to share. Its secret has nothing to do with the town being best known as the birthplace of Stan Laurel – of Laurel and Hardy fame – for this is no laughing matter.

Neither does it stem from the realisation that Ulverston has bred an eclectic mix of characters – from Norman Birkett, one of the British judges at the Nuremburg trials, to Maude Green, mother of rock’n’roll legend Bill Haley. Nor that its local cinema – the Roxy, no less – still has an intermission when an usherette appears carrying a tray of ice cream. And you can even get a cup of tea in a china mug if you ask nicely.

For an area known for the beauty of its rolling hills dotted with sheep and walkers, the secret it wants to share is that it is… a hotspot of high-tech engineering. Not quite as shocking as The Stepford Wives, perhaps – but for some of the more entrenched and grumpy locals at least a little disturbing.

Whereas the town centre may require several licks of paint and the entrance to Ulverston has all the appeal of Transylvania on a foggy day, here you will find tucked away such world-leading names as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Siemens and Oxley Developments.

True, the pharmaceutical company now known as GSK arrived in the 1940s, and Siemens, the world’s third-largest employer, came on the scene courtesy of absorbing Tronic, a company started in the garage of

an Ulverston home. Even Oxley Developments moved here after its London laboratory was bombed in the blitz. In fact, Oxley Developments in particular has spawned a number of spin-off companies such as Marl, which means they have a world-beating cluster of LED (light-emitting diode) technology expertise.

But the bottom line is that they all still make Ulverston their home – and they are very happy to do so. So much so that they have all got together under the banner of the Ulverston Business Alliance to encourage even more high-tech engineering companies to come and enjoy the old-world rural charm.

This, in turn, led to The Times Forum held in the massive Coronation Hall in the centre of Ulverston – built to celebrate the coronation of King George V and now used as the centre of entertainment for the South Lakeland area.

With the bronze statue of Laurel and Hardy greeting both the panellists and a local audience, it was an understandably relaxed event (tea with biscuits baked by local high school students), despite the serious undertones.

Chaired by Alasdair Nimmo of The Times, the Forum set out to tackle the issues of how to attract more high-tech engineering companies to the area – from stemming the outflow of talented youth, to urban centres, to the lack of high-speed broadband. And it was the subject of retaining local youngsters to develop the skills pool which was tackled by Wayne Singleton, as it is of particular concern for him as human resources manager at Siemens Tronic, the world leader in subsea connectors.

“One of the biggest things for us is keeping young people in the area,” Mr Singleton said, “when historically I think in Furness and South Cumbria employment opportunities haven’t been the greatest. Part of that is ensuring that we are partnering with local educational establishments – particularly for us with Ulverston Victoria High School – to make sure that we’re encouraging young people to go into the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which will then lead

potentially to apprenticeships and project schemes with us.”

Mr Singleton went on to reveal that he had already held discussions with both GSK and BAE Systems in Barrow-in-Furness on how they could co-operate with this initiative. “We want to get a talent pipeline going,” he said, “which will then obviously have a good impact for small or local businesses in the area as well as for the large local businesses – and keep that high-tech manufacturing base in this town.

“It is all about encouraging that interest, keeping those really good quality intelligent young people in this area and showing them that they can have a career in the area rather than having to move away.”

Another panellist whose priority lies in enhancing youth skills was Marjorie Pickthall of Furness College. “We have some excellent facilities now – and I think the facilities that are really necessary, so we keep pace with what’s happening in the industry,” she said. “At the college we are trying to push ourselves and drive ourselves forward and become more active rather than passive in working with the industry and with the schools.

“We are a member of the further education skills partnership, and that is very much the schools, the college and the employers trying to get the message through to schools about the employment that’s in the area – showing that they can have a career in this area rather than moving away.”

The sentiment was echoed by Greig Rooney, site director at GSK, who added that “not only should we get the kids fired up, but the teachers. Even the teachers don’t know what we make 20 or 30 yards down the road.”

The panel’s one MP – John Woodcock – was also keen to make his voice heard. “We have so much talent coming through the school system,” he said. “Yet you often talk to young people and even with all the superb firms on their doorstep, they don’t have the aspiration to go on and achieve what we know is possible.

“Now, through Furness College and others in the area, we’ve got a real platform to be able to get people coming through and

getting the grades we know our firms need. We also want to get the message through that, although they may go away to university, they can come back to the opportunities that are waiting for them in the area.”

Alasdair Nimmo then steered the panel on to the subject of the infrastructure needed not only to support the existing industry, but also to attract other companies to invest in the area. This saw South Lakeland Council leader Peter Thornton step into the spotlight.

“I think the most important thing is to get a very clear message out there that this district council has the economy right at the top of its agenda,” he said. “If the economy is right, then everything else will follow. If it isn’t, everything else is likely to fall apart. We have to be a cheerleader out there that South Cumbria and South Lakeland welcomes businesses.

“The second thing we need to do is to form alliances. We are a small district council, so I have to work with district, with county, with MPs and Westminster so we can access grants and get good pickings. Why do people want to come here and work? The answer is that the cultural offering is vital – but that means we need to look at planning issues.

“The best thing we can do as a council is to provide the land for the businesses to grow: commercial land, business land and housing land. Because if employees don’t have houses, then businesses don’t have employees. Unless we get the right housing land and the right candidates for those employers, the businesses will just wither, and if those houses cost twice as much as they do somewhere else, they become uncompetitive. So the most important thing for me is to provide the land, to provide a local development process that works and works for business.”

We have to get out a clear message that the economy is right at the top of our agenda

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

23

Business Insight

Forum The Forum panel:

Greig Rooney, site director, GlaxoSmithKline.

Wayne Singleton, human resources manager, Siemens Tronic.

John Woodcock, Member of Parliament for Barrow and Furness.

Marjorie Pickthall, director of Furness training at Furness College.

Al Mather, from the Centre for Leadership Performance.

Harry Knowles, CEO, Furness Enterprise.

Cllr Peter Thornton, leader of South Lakeland District Council.

Peter Cotterill, managing director, Oxley Developments.

And finally…

Another fine forum, with Laurel and Hardy from left: Peter Thornton, Greig Rooney, Wayne Singleton, Marjorie Pickthall, Alasdair Nimmo, Al Mather, Harry Knowles, John Woodcock and Peter Cotterill The discussion on infrastructure led to the most contentious issue for the panel members – the lack of high-speed fibre optic broadband in the area. Whereas the bigger companies can pay substantial sums to make their own arrangements, this is often beyond the budget of smaller firms. It was Peter Cotterill of Oxley who voiced the concerns of all the panellists.

“I think nowadays you feel almost socially deprived if you don’t have access to the internet and fast broadband,” he said.

“We deal with customers in the US, Australia and Europe that take it as a matter of course. We get involved in meeting sessions when there are things on the screens that are shared by both ends, and we need the broadband speed to enable us to participate.

“For businesses, it’s absolutely vital: the farming community can’t operate unless it’s got access to the internet, because everything’s done online. Schools have got good internet access in general, but they go home and they still want to be able to go online. To me, it affects every aspect of our lives.”

Greig Rooney of GSK put it even more bluntly. “We had a presentation from BT about this,” he said. “Ulverston is what they call a ‘white area’, which means commercially there is not enough demand for superfast broadband. It is critical to development in this area, so while the A590 is becoming a superfast highway, I want superfast broadband.”

Cllr Thornton agreed that broadband should be high on the list of priorities. “It’s a mobile world,” he said, “I have an iPhone and an iPad, a computer at home, a computer at work. I am sick of sitting at home waiting five minutes for an email to simply delete. This is simply unacceptable.

“The answer is for the Government to take BT aside and say you will do this, you will provide and if you don’t you will lose your licence. There is far too much messing about and expecting small councils to provide this in the neighbourhood. This is for the Government to do, and to tell BT you will provide broadband to our citizens or we’ll get someone else to do it.”

Switching from the thorny issue of broadband – which was threatening to entirely dominate the debate – the panel, under the firm direction of Alasdair Nimmo, addressed the subject of developing entrepreneurial skills in the area to help form the supply chain for the existing major players.

Al Mather of the Centre for Leadership Performance took up the subject of the larger firms in the area helping startups to get off the ground. “Working together with our partners here,” she said, “I hope the Centre can support that. Often entrepreneurs struggle to move away from being the business to working on the business.

There is a reluctance perhaps because they’re worried that their managers will move and work with others.

“Well there’s nothing you can do to stop that, but if we all work together here in Ulverston at least we can have a great supply of emerging senior managers. And if we work together, we can encourage and increase those skills and our leadership capability here. It’s interesting, the opportunity that this specialist manufacturing here presents to an entrepreneur. I think both large and small firms need to work together in partnership to understand each other’s worlds, to come together to encourage and foster innovation – and a lot of those skills are about entrepreneur management and leadership.”

Ms Mather understandably received the backing of Harry Knowles of Furness Enterprise. “We’ve had 20 years of helping new-starts, and if the company grows it comes down to the quality of the management,” Mr Knowles said. “It is a very difficult transition from being in the centre of a business to developing the skills to lead the business. It is very important, then, from the beginning that the person who is looking to start has the right kind of business support.

If they don’t get the right kind of business support at the beginning they will not survive.”

The fact that Ulverston is relatively isolated – although considerable improvements have been made to the main artery, the A590 – was also raised as a matter of concern by John Woodcock MP. “The Government has got to decide whether it believes genuinely in a regional economy like this,” he said, “because geographically we are isolated up here and you are always going to have to work that bit harder to make sure you have got the connections you need to succeed.

“And there are some really alarming noises from parts of Government to say ‘Well look, actually this is all just too expensive, we can’t be doing it’. The attitude seems to be ‘Let us see what the areas of growth in the economy are, and they can get on on their own’ – and others, frankly, are going to have to fend for themselves.

“Now that is not appropriate to the interests of the country and certainly it can do enormous damage to an area like this, so I really hope that ministers recognise the enormous potential for growth not only to employ citizens here but actually to serve the country in the future.”

The reason why the major high-tech companies can be found in Ulverston – and

At the end of the Forum, the panellists were asked what one thing they would most like to change for the better in the area (answering in less than 30 seconds and without mentioning broadband issues).

“I think mine would be transport. We talked earlier about the A590 improvements but also the better connected campaign for the rail links, those two things for me” – Wayne Singleton

“I think it is the message we send out that we are a place to live and work and we are go-ahead – come to Cumbria, come to the South Lakes” – Cllr Peter Thornton

“It is getting every young person coming up here to achieve and want to achieve, and we can help them do that” – John Woodcock MP

“Linking in with universities. If the panel could encourage that, it would bring the flow of ideas and support up here” – Al Mather

“To improve Ulverston and let people know exactly what it has to offer” – Greig Rooney

“I would like to get to a situation where we could go to our banks and get the investments we need for our business” – Harry Knowles

“To get the message out that Cumbria is not all about sheep and tourists – it’s about manufacturing and jobs” – Peter Cotterill

“It’s a fantastic area to bring your business to, as we are developing the skills to help you succeed” – Marjorie Pickthall just as importantly why they remain there – also remains the key to attracting new business to the area. All the panellists agreed without reservation that the overall quality of life on offer overrode any concerns over isolation.

Peter Cotterill summed up the consensus view. “It’s a fantastic area to live,” he said, “but currently people think about it in terms of sheep and tourism when actually it is about clever manufacturing. People need to be told there are opportunities not only for themselves but for their partners and their children, as there is a hell of a lot going on here.

“I think the branding image is something we could all do something about without it costing a fortune. By working together, we will be able to shift the message from sheep and tourism to sheep, tourism and manufacturing.”

Fantastic though it is as a place to live – a view constantly endorsed by the entire panel – there were a few minor concerns expressed that Ulverston itself could do with a facelift. The entrance to the town was generally viewed as dismal – and not reflecting its true charm.

Greig Rooney, for one, felt that “a lick of paint” in the centre would not go amiss.

In fact, the GSK site director even offered to supply the paint to do it.

The future of Ulverston, then, seems to be in good hands…

Chair: Alasdair Nimmo

© Colin Shelbourn, www.radiocartoonist.com

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

24

Business Insight

South Cumbria: Business support

The Lakeland business alliance that’s a terrier baring its teeth

W

ith the steady erosion of Government support for business in the regions and the dismantling of the regional development agencies set up to deliver that support, independent business organisations have been revitalised and are stepping into the void to help business build on success or fight for survival.

That is very much the story with Ulverston Business Alliance (UBA), which has existed for decades but has recently found a new lease of life as the voice of almost 300 businesses in one of the most overlooked areas of the country.

Ulverston does not naturally spring to mind when thinking of business hubs – it is a small town of around 15,000 people lying between the fells and the sea just outside the Lake District National Park. Ulverston is perhaps best known to tourists as a stopping-off point en route to Coniston or the western Lake District, or for its vibrant festivals – which celebrate everything from lanterns and prints to music, walking, flags and even the world of Charles Dickens in a splendid Victorian extravaganza cunningly timed to coincide with Christmas shopping.

But Ulverston is also home to a cluster of the UK’s top manufacturers of LED (light-emitting diode) lighting, a global leader in the subsea connection systems that revolutionised oil and gas production and which were recently snapped up

by Siemens plc, and has been chosen by GlaxoSmithKline as the site for a £350 million investment to create a new biopharmaceutical plant.

Add to that sundry other smaller high-tech industrial and engineering firms, and supply

chain companies supporting the UK’s only nuclear submarine construction facility a few miles down the road in Barrow, and it is evident that Ulverston is punching well above its weight in the fierce cage-fighting world of business.

For many years a plodding faithful spaniel, the UBA has now shown its true colours as a Lakeland terrier – which is fitting when you study the breed described as friendly, bold, and confident.

Neither shy nor aggressive, Lakelands are intelligent and independent-minded, interact well with others and are quick to learn – although they often exhibit “selective deafness” when their interest level is aroused, and are not easily deterred from their objective. All admirable qualities for a business support organisation, as dog lover and UBA chairman Archie Workman would agree.

Mr Workman manages the Ulverston Business Centre set up by property developers Steve Johnstone and John Muldoon, which offers meeting facilities and office accommodation for startups and small firms from as little as £50 per week. While he served his time in the shipyards of the North East as a marine engineer, Mr Workman has spent much of his working life in business support and inward investment organisations.

“Ulverston has a fantastic business base,” he says, “and whilst we have often been overlooked because we just quietly get on with it, the town is now starting to make more noise and won’t be easily deterred – yes, just like a terrier. Ulverston Business Alliance is working hard to draw together the energy which exists in the town and focus it constructively in areas where we can make a difference.”

For example, in July 2012, Ulverston was picked out by Google’s research team as one of the top ten fastest-growing areas for internet business in the UK – with the town’s online sales estimated to have grown by 30.4 per cent in the previous year. But when the plans were laid for rolling out superfast broadband across the county, Ulverston was right at the bottom of the list for getting the new service, despite its e-commerce trailblazing and its high-tech companies dependent on digital communications.

“That prompted us to launch the Ulverston Broadband Alliance,” Mr Workman says, “and we have been fighting the battle with the county council and broadband provider BT to move Ulverston to pole position on the superfast starting grid.”

Similarly, train operator FirstGroup was seeking to cut its daily direct services from Ulverston to Manchester Airport – services which are a vital lifeline for international business travellers based in the area. The UBA joined forces with Barrow and Furness MP John Woodcock and other organisations to force the train operator into an uncharacteristic u-turn.

Most recently, the UBA has worked closely with The Times to co-ordinate support for the business forum and the special South Cumbria supplement, casting the spotlight on the area’s surprising business credentials. “We’re through being overlooked or sidelined,” Mr Workman says. “Ulverston has a great business heritage and a great business future – and we’re prepared to fight to keep it on track.”

Archie Workman: Fighting for Broadband pole position

Chamber champions co-ordination

C

umbria has come through the recession relatively well, but a real boost is needed if the local economy is to achieve its potential. To this end, Cumbria Chamber of Commerce has been working hard to put together a co-ordinated package of business support.

Central to this is the new Cumbria Business Growth Hub. A web portal and related telephone service will promote not only Growth Hub support but also other funded projects and paid-for services, as well as offering a range of online services. Businesses will work with an adviser to develop a personalised action plan, incorporating support through the Growth Hub and elsewhere to help them grow, enhance profitability and take on additional staff.

Growth Hub support includes advice, workshops, online activities, networking, events, a consultancy support scheme and more. While aimed at businesses with immediate growth potential, it will also be able to help others to enhance competitiveness and sustainability.

Fully aligned with this is Cumbria’s Rural Growth Network, involving development of key employment sites and physical Growth Hubs (including in Ulverston), thematic and general networks, advice, training, planning facilitation, mentoring and events – all aimed at growing Cumbria’s varied rural business economy.

Then there is the raft of other support that the Growth Hub will refer into, including the Business Start-Up Support (BSUS) and New En-

terprise Allowance schemes, along with UKTI (UK Trade and Investment) international trade support – all delivered by the Chamber of Commerce. There are also schemes such as the Manufacturing Advisory Service, Access to Finance and the North West Fund – as well as the linking of businesses to apprenticeships, other training, schemes to support unemployed people into work and paid-for services.

Most recently the Chamber of Commerce and Cumbria County Council, working together, have been successful in bidding into the Regional Growth Fund on behalf of Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership for a grant scheme to support manufacturers, exporters and small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs).

“I’m delighted we’ve been able to put together this suite of support which will make a real difference to Cumbria’s economy,” says Rob Johnston, chief executive of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, “not least through addressing confidence to invest and access to finance.”

“No organisation can deliver the range of support that is needed alone,” adds Suzanne Caldwell, the Chamber’s head of communications and business services, “and the input of partners and funders is vital. A number of these schemes, not least the Growth Hub and BSUS, are supported by the European Regional Development Fund. Funders also include the Chamber, local partners, the Department for Work and Pensions, BIS [the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills] and Defra.”

Chamber chief Rob Johnston: A suite of support ‘that will make a real difference’

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

25

Business Insight

South Cumbria: Connectivity

Bringing the North of England closer to the digital action

By Kenny Kemp

B

ritain’s digital and creative industries live or die on their ability to connect easily and effectively with the rest of the world. Companies in the North East and North West are now able to reap the rewards of superfast connectivity, which is allowing them to grow significantly, despite the recent recession. And a network of incubators, innovation and science parks, linked to universities, with enhanced connectivity on superfast nodes, is offering significant opportunity.

With 4G connectivity now being rolled out across the globe, the public can expect another leap forward in mobile technology.

3G – now ten years old – brought the facility for consumers to make video calls, stream online content on iPads and smartphones and receive updates from Facebook and Twitter in real time. Now, with 4G connecting at ten times that speed, there are new opportunities arising.

Improved connectivity for business has been aided by BT’s £2.5 billion national rollout of fibre. “Our roll-out is national, so of course companies can get fibre in most locations now, North or South,” said Simon Roberson, BT’s North East regional director and a champion for digital technology. “But the North East is already an attractive place for business because of the cheaper costs etc, so improved connectivity only strengthens the argument for businesses to remain or relocate here.

“The arrival of fibre can really help firms in these economically challenging times, opening up new ways of working and speeding up vital operations, such as file and data transfers, conferencing and computer backup, all of which may also help cut costs.”

Research suggests that over the next 15 years, superfast broadband investment could give the economy of Newcastle upon Tyne or Carlisle a £296 million boost, creating around 430 new jobs and 320 new startup businesses.

“Faster broadband is touching the lives of everyone,” Mr Roberson added, “from small businesses and homeworkers to internet shoppers, students, families and online gaming enthusiasts – and transforming the way we do things, for the better.”

This is playing its part in revitalising the North. In October 2008, BT and South Tyneside Council entered a £184m, tenyear partnership to help improve council services and regenerate the area. This has provided new opportunities for local companies in both North and South Tyneside, creating the potential for 750 jobs. BT has occupied a landmark business centre, which has kickstarted regeneration.

This next phase of the technological revolution has enabled businesses to work

more effectively in the North, where digital communications were at best patchy and worst non-existent. Cleardata, a leading document management company based in Blyth, felt it was falling behind and was keen to get fibre broadband connections.

“I knew that fibre broadband would alleviate the pressure on our existing businesses processes,” said managing director David Bryce. “Without it, we would have had to consider relocating.”

Superfast connections have made a difference to Cleardata, securing a health service contract worth £500,000 and helping to keep 40 people in work in Northumberland.

Customers choose BT Ethernet speeds between one megabit per second and 10 gigabits per second, depending on their needs.

At the top rate of 10 gigabits, the system is capable of transmitting 10bn bits of information per second.

Sunderland Software City, the International Centre for Life in Newcastle, the NETPark (North East Technology Park) in County Durham and the Westlakes Science and Technology Park in Cumbria are all in a strong position to incubate new companies and exciting next-generation business startups. Each has their own specialism, from the Biomedicine West Wing in Newcastle though to Westlake’s involvement with the decommissioning at Sellafield. They all require the latest computing power and broadband connectivity to prosper.

“NETPark continues to go from strength to strength supporting innovative high-tech companies,” said Stewart Watkins, managing director of Business Durham. The park, managed by Business Durham on behalf of Durham County Council, has recently attracted a number of companies including Ennsub, an engineering design company with its headquarters in Aberdeen, and Redditch Medical from Worcestershire, which join long-established NETPark companies Kromek and Reinnervate.

“The links between Business Durham, Durham University and the Centre for Process Innovation (which manages the National Centre for Printable Electronics at NETPark) are very strong, with an integrated business support system for hightech companies and a number of outreach and engagement activities to inspire local schoolchildren and families about careers in science,” Mr Watkins said.

“NETPark is hugely important to the future of our economy – technology companies create highly skilled, highly paid jobs and evidence suggests that every job on a science park such as NETPark creates up to 3½ jobs off the science park in local communities. It is fantastic to see companies making the decision to locate at NETPark as they see the benefit it brings.”

Catherine Johns, director of innovation and business growth with Business Dur-

caption

Simon Roberson: Improved connectivity is key to keeping and attracting business ham, believes connectivity is vital. “Broadband is seen as a given by technology companies,” she said. “If you haven’t got it, don’t set up as a science park. We sit on one of the nodes for County Durham.”

Further north, Sunderland Software City – in partnership with the City of Sunderland Council and Sunderland University and funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) – is focusing on the digital games and computer graphics industry. The ERDF has provided over £300m to the region to support innovation and enterprise.

David Dunn, chief executive of Sunderland Software City, points out that there are over 1,300 software companies in the North East. “A huge part of our role is inspiring the next generation of North East software talent and helping local young people see software as a realistic and rewarding career option.”

Typical of this was a recent BAFTA Young Games Designers workshop. “We know a lot of young people think software isn’t for people like them or has nothing to do with the things they’re passionate about,” said Mr Dunn, “but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

The computer games industry in the North remains a part of this success story – but it cannot rest on its laurels. The global sales of the UK video games industry in 2008 were £2bn, bigger than film or music.

Between 2006 and 2008 it was the fastest-

Now faster broadband is changing how we do things for the better

growing part of the UK film industry. But the industry is truly global and must keep attracting talent and have the fastest levels of connectivity. After the UK dropped from third in the world to sixth, a 2010 report from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) attributed this to the failing education system which focused information and communications technology on office skills rather than computer science and programming skills.

The North is now tackling this challenge.

One example, Thumbstar Games, based on Liverpool Innovation Park since 2008 and with over 100 developers, has opened an office in Newcastle at Milburn House, working on handheld games. Mobile Mingle in Newcastle has become a networking event for the up-and-coming developer, while Animex, the international festival of animation and computer games, returns to Middlesbrough in February 2013.

“The jobs of tomorrow are already here in the North East,” said David Dunn. “We need to ensure we have the right talent coming through from schools and universities to meet the expectations of this dynamic global business.”

Over in West Cumbria, Britain’s Energy Coast is an economic development partnership supporting innovation in the energy and renewables businesses. It was set up in 2009 to work towards a low-carbon future. Major global companies, such as Tata Steel Projects investing in the port at Workington, are working with the Energy Coast and the local authorities of Allerdale, Copeland and Cumbria. Part of this is the expansion of Westlakes Science and Technology Park, near Whitehaven.

The untapped expertise in the UK’s nuclear energy industry is creating fresh business opportunities, stimulated by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and the extensive clean-up work at Sellafield, which is operated by Nuclear Management Partners on behalf of the NDA. The NDA is a key stakeholder in Britain’s Energy Coast, while the National Nuclear Laboratory and the Dalton Cumbrian Facility are researching radiation technology and are at the cutting edge of nuclear technology.

Earlier this month, Sellafield selected AMEC, Hertel (UK) and Shepley Engineers as its partners for a £280m maintenance and asset restoration project, this following a potential £1.1bn contract with Morgan Sindall and Arup for clean-up work.

Westlakes Science and Technology Park, owned and operated by Britain’s Energy Coast, has benefited from this proximity.

The park is now home to over 1,450 people and 70 businesses and organisations, many providing support for the nuclear industry. “We’re unique in Cumbria and we are bucking the national trend,” said Tim Hirst, head of property. “Our occupancy is 100 per cent at present and we are constructing a new 20,000 square-foot facility to keep up with demand. A driver for this has been the work at Sellafield and Lion’s contracts to upgrade and improve the nuclear infrastructure. We’ve also got a number of exciting young businesses growing here.”

A business incubator on the park, operated by the University of Central Lancashire, has become an integral part of this success story. The university placed its bet four years ago with a £5.5m investment. Last year, the University of Manchester joined them on campus with a £20m investment in the field of research into nuclear physics.

The superfast connections are allowing all types of business across the North to keep up with the rest of the world and remain much nearer to the centre of the business action.

Thursday November 29 2012 | the times

26

Business Insight

Commercial Report

Here’s health today: facing challenge of tomorrow’s change The Assura Group is ready to use its deep experience to smooth the path of transition

By Frank Simpson

H

ealthcare provision in the UK is undergoing some of the most significant changes since the NHS was established, aiming to improve the service offered to patients while removing inefficiencies. Most would agree that the changes are necessary to deliver an effective universal care system and drive down unsustainable budgets, yet Government plans introduced thus far have received a barrage of criticism.

While the changes introduced by the Health and Social Care Act have been widely discussed and debated, practical considerations around premises and healthcare estates have not. It is here that Assura Group is able to utilise its expertise and track record to turn a daunting process into a much smoother transition.

The introduction of the new Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) is one of the most significant changes – and one which, from April 2013, will give groups of general practitioners (GPs) responsibility for commissioning or buying health and social care services in their local area. It essentially gives GPs the power to “design” local health services. All practices must belong to a CCG.

F

The changing role of the GP has been one of the more well-publicised – and sometimes contested – aspects of the new system of healthcare provision. Yet whatever the feeling among GPs about CCGs and the associated benefits and limitations, many have not yet explored the practical considerations around premises and the provision of new services.

Put simply, as the role of the GP changes, so does that of the average local medical practice. GPs are required to deliver more services to more people by extending both the provision and commissioning of care – but, faced with the prospect of too much inadequate primary care stock, the task could not have arrived at a more challenging time.

So, what does the future of primary care property look like, and how can GPs ensure they are able to provide the level of care now required?

As patients are offered more choice (access to the NHS remains through registration with a general practice), patients will expect more from their GP, who will subsequently need to be more ambitious in the delivery of care to patients. This is likely to result in the extension of primary care teams beyond the practice nurse and administrative support, with the ability to offer new expertise to patients with long-term conditions, including nursing and advice from allied healthcare professionals, plus diagnostics and social care.

Assura Group is ahead of the curve in facilitating the delivery of extended services within its medical centres, many of which enable GPs to share fa-

rom its headquarters in Warrington, Assura Group has developed an extensive portfolio of cutting-edge primary healthcare properties. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that the business has continued to do so at a time when the NHS is undergoing the most significant changes in its history, and in a climate of severe public spending cuts.

Welcome: to a new world of health cilities with dentists and optometrists to provide hubs that are capable of delivering a greater number of complete episodes of care from a single location.

This notion of “complete care” will be key to the success of the future general practice.

So as GPs develop their new role as clinical commissioner in the coming 12 months, facilities must be improved if this modern version of primary care is to be realised. A large proportion of primary care estates are unfit for GPs to provide wider service provision, and – despite their best intentions – some estates will struggle to comply with Care Quality Commission (CQC) standards, let alone house the highquality, varied services they are ex-

Listed on the London Stock Exchange and with a portfolio of over 160 properties, Assura Group is the UK’s leading developer of and investor in primary healthcare premises. Aside from its continued success in an extremely challenging market, the business plays an important role in improving health outcomes, and many of its medical centres are located in areas with serious health inequalities.

Working closely with GPs, primary care trusts, NHS trusts, local health boards and district valuers, its innovative medical centres allow GPs to treat patients in a modern, comfortable environment.

And with many of its practices comprising cuttingedge technology and medical facilities, Assura

pected to provide. In short, delivering small isolated services in converted premises may no longer be adequate.

Growing teams and advanced technology and equipment will need to be accommodated, requiring a huge cultural change that must be addressed

by CCGs and the NHS Commissioning Board Authority. As a result, very small practices may find operating in this environment challenging, and – while single-handed practices have historically provided a more than satisfactory service to patients – this alone may not make them sustainable.

Our goal should not be to build huge health centres more akin to mini hospitals, but space for additional healthcare professionals will need to

Group is able to facilitate very tangible improvements to care while reducing pressure on accident and emergency wards.

Spearheaded by chief executive Graham Roberts and an experienced senior management team, Assura Group looks set to continue its growth trajectory, supported by a strong portfolio and an impressive development pipeline.

While the healthcare market will certainly remain challenging, new opportunities exist for businesses such as Assura Group with a strong track record plus knowledge and experience of the healthcare sector in its past, present – and future – guises.

Space needs to be provided but our goal is not to build huge health centres

the times | Thursday November 29 2012

27

Business Insight

Commercial Report

A fascinating snapshot of how healthcare might look for the next generation: Ultra-modern Moor Park Health and Leisure Centre be provided. Such facilities will require investment in the primary care estate, but a great deal can be achieved by simply redeploying services effectively or partnering with private sector investors such as Assura Group.

Furthermore, while it is clear that the role of GPs as commissioners will necessitate a huge change in primary care medical provision, the CQC also brings its own separate challenges.

While the initial announcement that GP surgeries will need to meet standards set by the CQC created an initial flurry of activity, it has thus far failed to gather any real momentum – and, since the deadline was postponed, a large number of practices have not yet moved forward with registration.

Despite the smoke and panic, nothing has as yet been enforced. Yet for GPs who own the premises from which they practice, there are a number of considerations to take into account and those operating from premises that were not built for the purpose of delivering primary care services are likely to find a number of areas in which the building does not meet requirements in full. The majority of practices will find that they are operating within regulations, but GPs do need to take the prospect of inspections seriously.

Practice managers will need to take care to ensure that those visiting and working in the premises are protected from the risks associated with an “unsafe or unsuitable” building, which is where significant issues may arise

for non-purpose-built practices. The premises must also have a suitable design and layout, and measures must be in place to ensure its security.

While the CQC regulations certainly give GPs a lot to consider, they are likely to succeed in driving the improvement of surgeries – and the resulting medical provision – across the country. For Assura Group, the changes provide the opportunity to utilise its expertise to assist GPs in making sure that premises are fully compliant.

Working with experts with this property knowledge will significantly reduce the disruption involved in working toward compliance.

One option for GPs that own their own premises may be a purchase and leaseback agreement, which may shift the responsibility of compliance onto new owners but also unburdens partnerships of ongoing property matters such as repair and maintenance and facilitates simpler changes to the partnerships.

Primary care providers have a great deal to consider over the coming months as the reorientation of the healthcare system begins to take shape. And while compliance requirements will likely seem just an another hurdle to be negotiated, there is real potential to reshape how local care is delivered, to eliminate health inequalities across the country and ensure that cutting-edge medical facilities such as those provided by Assura Group become less of an exception.

Moor Park Health & Leisure Centre, Blackpool £15m primary care centre

A

s well as providing state-of-the-art facilities for three GP surgeries, Moor Park offers services including nursing, dentistry, speech therapy, adult mental health provision and pharmacy, plus leisure facilities and a swimming pool. The centre really is a hub for the community, and provides a fascinating snapshot of how primary healthcare for the next generation might look.

What is immediately clear is that patient experience was front-

of-mind when the building was designed: the flexible and open plan space succeeds in providing a relaxing and calming environment, despite the consistently high footfall.

Perhaps most importantly in an environment of spending cuts and operating efficiencies, the centre has removed any compliance issues that existed previously and allowed funds intended to ensure compliance with CQC regulation to be invested in new equipment for the practice, including a new ultrasound machine.

Moor Park has also embraced the sustainability agenda, meeting a 15 per cent renewable energy target. The building is designed around a sustainable drainage system, and incorporates natural ventilation and orientation to make the most effective use of the sun’s warmth, while a combined heat and power plant provides energy not only for the medical facilities, but also for the leisure centre and swimming pool. Excess energy is sold back to the National Grid to generate extra revenue.

St Hilary Group Practice, Wallasey, Wirral £2.5 million medical centre

O

ne of the most advanced primary care centres in the North West, the practice was opened in July this year by Sir David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS. The state-of-the-art building now provides purpose-built premises for St Hilary Brow Group Practice, plus integrated and diagnostic services such as ultrasound

and physiotherapy. A minor surgery suite also operates on site.

The innovative facility provides an interesting snapshot of the future of primary care provision, and of the fully integrated service to be provided by GPs. Extended services offered at the new centre will allow practitioners to make speedier diagnoses, make more specific use of hospital resources and allow the

completion of episodes of care in one location.

Keeping sustainability in mind, the building has been constructed with a number of different finishes including brickwork, cladding, stonework, render and glazing, and has a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment environmental assessment method) rating of “very good”.

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