News: Buy local initiative "Trade Rotherham" launched

A new initiative has been launched that aims to increase business awareness whilst promoting and developing inter-trading between Rotherham businesses.

Trade Rotherham has the support of major companies within the town as well as Rotherham Council, NHS Trust and The RNN Group. It has been launched by the Rotherham Business Growth Board, the private sector led board that provides leadership on issues of key economic significance to the borough and provides a link to Sheffield city region's local enterprise partnership.

Local businesses are being urged to register for free on Trade Rotherham in order to upload a company profile and add promotions. The user friendly site enables businesses to search for other businesses to boost the opportunities for keeping trade local.

A special offers page where, for a nominal fee, local firms can add a promotion for products or services, which Trade Rotherham will then promote to the network of business registered on the site. To coincide with the launch, the team at Trade Rotherham are offering a one month promotion free of charge for users registered before August 1 2017.

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Julia Bloomer, who represents Rotherham manufacturing firm AESSEAL and is chair of Rotherham Business Growth Board, said: "The Business Growth Board believe that all companies can procure more goods and services locally than they do currently. Regardless of the size of business or organisation, Trade Rotherham has been specifically designed to encourage business to trade and buy from other local businesses within the Borough of Rotherham."

The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, Rotherham Council, Wentworth Woodhouse and other businesses in the town are planning to regularly promote tender opportunities on the "community" section of Trade Rotherham.

The site is set to be promoted in every which way possible, to ensure success and to ensure business in Rotherham thrives. The website adds: "We are aware that not all services and products can be sourced locally but we want to ensure as much business as possible is done between local businesses."

Trade Rotherham website

Images: Trade Rotherham

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News: Partnership launch long-term strategy for Rotherham

High profile economic development and regeneration projects are helping to create a new perspective for Rotherham.

Developed as Rotherham Together Partnership's long-term strategy for the borough, the Rotherham Plan 2025 has been officially launched this week. It provides a framework for partners' joint efforts to create a borough that "is better for everyone who wants to live, work, invest or visit here."

The plan is based around five "game changers": building stronger communities, skills and employment, integrated health and social care, a place to be proud of and the town centre.

The new Rotherham Together Partnership was launched in September 2015. It brings together a wide range of organisations, including major public bodies. Its Business Growth Board is responsible for the delivery of the ten-year Rotherham Economic Growth Plan which feeds into this new plan and includes indicators on business starts, employment, skill levels and vacant units in the town centre.

The skills and employment section describes how partners across Rotherham and the wider city region will develop a work and health programme that provides comprehensive support to help people secure, sustain and thrive in employment.

Key to improving skill levels will be the development of a £12m university campus in the town centre. Rotherham College, part of RNN Group, is moving fast having secured funding and will open the centre to students in Autumn 2018, offering a new programme of degrees and degree apprenticeships.

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The section on creating a place to be proud of references the approach to "place shaping", overseen by the new, business-led place board, that will help to create a new identity for Rotherham. The Rotherham Story was launched last month as the first step in marketing and repositioning the borough with ambassadors or "pioneers" selling Rotherham as a place to live and do business.

The town centre has been given high status in the plan, mainly due to the strength of feeling from a range of residents during the consultation where "people were positive about parts of the town centre, particularly the Minster Gardens and High Street, but these were outweighed by the negatives."

The regeneration programme based on the new town centre masterplan, is set to be key in delivering a town centre that more people want to visit.

Cllr. Chris Read, leader of Rotherham Council was at the launch event where he discussed the £160m of additional investment coming to Rotherham over the next few years - projects like Forge Island, the HE Campus, the Interchange, tram-train, Gulliver's Valley and Wentworth Woodhouse - and inward investment from the likes of McLaren and Liberty House.

The UK's first Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District (AMID), set to be created in the Sheffield-Rotherham economic corridor, is used as a case study in the plan. AMID will be a nucleus of innovation and research in advanced manufacturing, with strengthened connections across new and existing firms and knowledge institutions that will benefit from close proximity to world-class technology facilities.

Cllr. Read said: "Rotherham people are resilient people. Year after year, decade after decade, we've faced down challenges and we've dealt with difficulty.

"In fact, if we've had a flaw, it’s that we've kept our heads down too much. We haven't understood why the rest of the world can't see all the brilliant things about our borough, when they stare us in the face. If folks down south wanted to think of us as smoggy and grey, that was their loss.

"We called the Plan we're launching today "A New Perspective" because it requires us to take a different point of view, to get the outside world to take a new look at us."

Rotherham Together Partnership website

Images: Rotherham Together Partnership / Bond Bryan

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News: Rotherham: a new perspective

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A major place marketing exercise has been carried out in Rotherham as part of a strategy that signals a new business led approach to drive investment, transformation and growth.

Consultants from Thinkingplace have been engaged by the Rotherham Together Partnership to create a consistent narrative for Rotherham - "the Rotherham story" - as a way of promoting the borough. It comes as progress continues on a number of positive projects such as the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP), developments in the town centre, Gulliver's Valley and the Yorkshire Man of Steel.

An event marking the start of the "transformational journey towards a more successful Rotherham" is taking place at Rotherham United's New York Stadium next month where the results of the exercise will be discussed and there will be the opportunity to hear from the place marketing specialists, as well as from businesses and individuals on how they intend to take this initiative forward.

Julie Kenny CBE DL, Chair of the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust will host the event on February 15 alongside business leaders.

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Kenny is also a commissioner at Rotherham Council, leading on growing the local economy and ensuring the Council is working with others to improve jobs and housing opportunities. She has also been overseeing the Council's relationships with partners, and the voluntary and community sector.

The founder of successful Rotherham manufacturer, Pyronix, explained the initiative at a recent council meeting. She said: "A significant piece of work has been commissioned this year by the Partnership to develop a place-shaping strategy for Rotherham. This has involved a comprehensive programme of stakeholder engagement to identify distinctive themes, ideas and imagery that help to tell the Rotherham story as a way of promoting the borough to potential investors, visitors and workers.

"The themes will be introduced in February and March 2017."

The new Rotherham Together Partnership was launched in September 2015. It brings together a wide range of organisations, including major public bodies. Its Business Growth Board is responsible for the delivery of the ten-year Rotherham Economic Growth Plan.

Private sector led, but including the Council and other partners, the Board is particularly focused on skills, employment and developing the town centre, as well as providing a link to the Sheffield City Region and the opportunities presented to Rotherham through devolution of economic powers and funding.

Rotherham Together Partnership website

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News: Rotherham Business Growth Board

The private sector is being encouraged to get involved with the fresh start at Rotherham Council as part of the new strategic partnership focusing on the local economy.

After a number of reports highlighted serious failings across the authority, an intervention package was announced by the Government and saw commissioners appointed who will provide new leadership and take on all executive functions of the authority.

An unprecedented step, the five commissioners have been appointed for a period of up to four years and could be in charge of the Council until March 2019.

As part of their remit, the commissioners are addressing the weak partnerships and Community Strategy that was discussed in the inspections. The Local Strategic Partnership has been reviewed and the new arrangements were agreed by all partners. "A renewed model of more inclusive and purposeful joint working with partners," it is set to be signed off this week.

The "Rotherham Together Partnership" is set to launch later this month and a key part of it will be the Rotherham Business Growth Board that will ensure the Rotherham Economic Growth Plan is delivered and meets business needs.

The borough's Growth Plan, also set to be signed off this month, is the economic plan to help deliver 10,000 new private sector jobs in Rotherham over the next ten years.

In the first six months, the commissioners have found that "The Council needs to do more to get a grip of its priorities and look critically how it can stimulate local economic growth, leading to more jobs, more homes, and more income opportunities for the council."

Replacing the Economy Board, and set to be chaired by somebody from the private sector, the team will lead the strategic direction of Rotherham's economy, working closely with the business community, Rotherham Council, the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

The board will become a driver for growth, innovation, skills and enterprise in the Rotherham. It will provide direction and drive forward actions to support enterprise, increase business opportunities, secure investment, create additional jobs and improve the town centre.

Commissioner Julie Kenny at Rotherham Council (pictured, second left) said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for Rotherham businesses to shape the future of our town. I look forward to inspirational representatives of industry and enterprise coming together to make a real difference, help our economy to grow and ensure local people are able to benefit from and contribute to that growth."

This new way of working is designed to make the most effective use of partners' time, resources, knowledge and expertise. The board will meet for the first time in early October 2015.

Recruitment is now under way for a Chair, Vice Chair and business representatives to sit on the board. Interested individuals are asked to submit a one page expression of interest covering their experience and what they can bring to the board. Expressions of interest should be emailed to info@rido.org.uk by Friday September 25 2015.

Rotherham Council website

Images: RMBC

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