The head of law firm Bromleys’ family and divorce team has been promoted to principal solicitor.
Keith Bull joined the Tameside practice in 2018 and has overseen a doubling in size and turnover for the team.
He specialises in cases involving the breakdown of marriages and relationships of high net worth clients, especially those with their own businesses, investments and sizeable pensions.
Keith is recognised in his field as a leading expert – he is an advanced member of the Law Society’s advanced family law panel and an accredited specialist on the family law panel of Resolution.
Resolution is a membership organisation for lawyers and other professionals committed to constructive, non-confrontational ways to resolve divorce, separation and other family-related legal issues.
Keith has specialist accreditations from Resolution for financial remedies, private children law, domestic violence, and cohabitation and property disputes brought under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act. He is also an assessor for the organisation in the application process for accreditation.
His team at Bromleys also deals with cases involving the children of a broken relationship, particularly domestic violence injunctions and ensuing or related matters.
Mark Hirst, senior partner at Bromleys, said: “Keith’s promotion is recognition for his exemplary work and achievements since joining the firm in 2018. The team under his leadership has gone from strength to strength and this is testament to his strategic planning.”
Keith said: “To be recognised and offered this promotion by the partners at Bromleys is a tremendous honour.
“I have over 30 years of family law experience, and 2022 has been a real milestone for both myself and the team. We smashed the record for turnover for our team and, towards the end of the financial year, I was able to boost our staffing levels as we look very well set for further growth this year.
“Working in family law comes with its challenges. Going through a divorce or a separation is an emotionally-charged time for anyone, but having the right team by your side can help alleviate some of the stresses relating to property, children and financial issues.
“My entire team is dedicated to the cause and always strives to achieve the very best outcome for all our clients.”
PROMOTION FOR HEAD OF FAMILY AND DIVORCE TEAM AT BROMLEYS
CAVU, founded by Manchester Airports Group, launches today
MAGO and MAG USA have today rebranded as CAVU
CAVU aims to revolutionise airport travel, driving value for passengers and growing non-aeronautical revenue for clients and partners around the world
Solutions include a proprietary Ecommerce Platform, Intelligent Performance commercial services, Distribution capabilities and physical Passenger Experiences
Global clients and partners include Brisbane Airport, George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Salt Lake City International Airport and Ryanair
For more information see https://ca.vu/
Manchester Airports Group (MAG) today announced the union of its American and digital divisions – MAGO and MAG USA – to form a new business, CAVU.
Benefitting from MAG’s 80 years of aviation heritage, CAVU has an unrivalled understanding of airport passengers. The newly-formed business will help clients across the world develop better customer experiences and drive value from the end-to-end passenger journey boosting their non-aeronautical revenue.
Examples of products and services developed by CAVU include a proprietary Ecommerce Platform, which allows passengers to pre-book car parking and other airport products such as lounges and fast track security.
Additionally, its Intelligent Performance commercial services offer revenue management and digital marketing capabilities, and its Distribution solution offers passengers the broadest global choice of airport parking and related services – already spanning 23 countries, 302 airports, 1,191 suppliers and 2,631 individual parking products. Its flagship physical Passenger Experience brand, Escape Lounges, can already be found in 15 airports internationally.
The company’s new name is taken from the aviation and meteorology term ‘Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited,’ which describes the prefect flying condition, where the ceiling is more than 10,000ft and the visibility is more than ten miles. More than just a label, it represents what they stand for – creating seamless, enjoyable travel experiences for airport passengers.
Martin Jones, CEO of CAVU, said:
“We are so excited to have launched CAVU today as we strive to become the number one airport product and services company in the world. Backed by 80 years of aviation heritage with parent company MAG we understand the airport passenger like no other. Our aviation history and long-standing knowledge of the industry means we’re able to deliver more products, scale customer reach for our partners and improve the travel experience for passengers.
“The new business has been created with a clear mission of unlocking value from the end-to-end passenger journey, increasing non-aeronautical revenue for our clients and partners, and delivering products that improve the travel experience for passengers.”
Along with the new name, the launch of CAVU includes a new logo and website. CAVU’s direct-to-consumer global distribution brands will operate as normal, these include Looking4, ParkSleepFly, AirportParkingReservations and SkyParkSecure.
PMD Business Finance supports major acquisition for specialist cleaning company
A Greater Manchester-based business finance broker has helped fund a major deal in the specialist cleaning sector by providing a seven-figure structured finance package.
PMD Business Finance’s structured finance division has provided part of the funding which has allowed React Group Plc to complete its £8.5m acquisition of LaddersFree Ltd – an established business specialising in commercial window, gutter and cladding cleaning.
The deal enables Derbyshire-headquartered React Group to broaden its customer base and achieve further nationwide growth.
The AIM-listed company provides a wide range of specialist nationwide services including deep cleaning, decontamination, and hazardous waste removal for sectors including prisons, emergency services, industrial, highways, transport, technology, and hospitality.
Based in Exeter, LaddersFree has a network of over 300 service partners and counts established brands like Costa Coffee, Next, Lidl, Holiday Inn Express and Marriot hotels among its customers.
PMD Business Finance provided a £2.5m structured finance package to support the cash and shares deal. The deal team at PMD was led by structured finance directors Callum Bull and John Platt.
Commenting on the deal, Callum Bull, structured finance director at PMD Business Finance, said: “We’re proud to have supported this significant acquisition that will allow React Group to further diversify its service offering in the specialist cleaning market.
“LaddersFree has a highly scalable business model and can look forward to further significant growth through the additional investment and resources provided by React Group.”
Mark Braund, chairman of React Group, said: “This is our second major acquisition and one that represents our ambition to build a profitable, industry leading business through both organic growth and strategic acquisitions.
“LaddersFree has an established customer base and generates significant recurring business, which complements the highly specialist reactive cleaning service we already provide. We’re delighted to welcome the company and its excellent team to the group.
“We’re also incredibly thankful to Callum and John in the structured finance team at PMD Business Finance for their invaluable support. It’s been refreshing to deal with an intermediary that has such a clear understanding of the market and was able to guide us carefully through the deal process.”
React Group has provided specialist cleaning and decontamination services in difficult locations and sensitive circumstances for over 20 years, providing a 24/7 service by fully trained and security cleared professionals.
Founded in 2002 by Justin and Jason Korinek, LaddersFree specialises in specialist window cleaning for shops, restaurants, offices, hotels, and car dealerships. It uses a range of methods, including water-fed poles, mobile elevated platforms, abseiling and rope access to service its customers.
PMD Business Finance was founded in 2010 and is now one of the largest independent providers of business finance in the UK, targeting £250m of lending this year. Its structured finance team was founded in 2020 and specialises in providing structured finance solutions to SME and professional advisors.
NW Cyber Corridor boosted by further investment with HOST piloting NCSC’s CyberFirst Schools in the North West
Innovation hub HOST, the Home of Skills & Technology in MediaCity, Salford, has been appointed as the North West delivery partner for a pilot of CyberFirst Schools, run by GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), to champion cyber education in the region’s North West Cyber Corridor.
Through its flagship Skills City operation, HOST will deliver the CyberFirst Schools pilot over a one-year period to over 500 schools and colleges from across the North West to inspire more young people to explore careers in cyber security.
The collaboration will further increase fair access to technology careers, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and underrepresented groups, including girls and young women. Female representation in the sector is considerably low, with women accounting for just 22 per cent of the UK’s cyber workforce.
HOST, operated by IN4 Group, will draw on its extensive local and national employer network to help facilitate engagement between industry and schools in the region. This will enable more young people to access opportunities, such as mentoring and work experience, outside the classroom and in the growing technology sector.
It will be working with leading industry and regional academic partners including BAE Systems, Raytheon, Siemens, AWS, University of Central Lancashire and University of Salford, to drive further investment into schools and future-proof technology talent.
The contract follows HOST’s successful delivery of three rounds of GCHQ’s Innovation Co-Lab – a programme which aimed to find innovative start-ups and small to medium-sized businesses in the North West. Successful companies took part in a 12-week programme to work with GCHQ technologists and industry experts to improve their products. HOST also held the first North West Cyber Summit in March to support the building of the Cyber Corridor.
The CyberFirst Schools initiative recognises schools and colleges across the UK that are committed to encouraging young people to develop cyber skills, with the NCSC awarding them with a gold, silver or bronze status.
Since the initiative was launched in 2020, 49 CyberFirst schools and colleges have been recognised, helping to develop cyber skills ecosystems around the country and addressing the industry’s cyber skills gap.
The 2022 CyberFirst Girls Competition final was also held at HOST in Salford and was focused on inspiring girls aged 12 to 13 to consider pursuing careers in cyber security.
Mo Isap, CEO of IN4 Group, said: “Being Blackburn born and bred, it’s fantastic to see these great prospects for Lancashire as well as Greater Manchester, and now we have a significant opportunity to inspire future generations into technology careers with the CyberFirst programme. This will have a huge impact on young people across the region, who are currently living in places like Salford, Accrington and Blackpool. The bringing together of education, skills, technology and industry is the key enabler to creating prosperity in the region.
“With the UK government’s investment of more than £5 billion into its new National Cyber Force in Samlesbury, Lancashire, the region is leading the way to establish further innovation and skills as part of the emerging North West Cyber Corridor.
Chris Ensor, NCSC Deputy Director for Cyber Growth, said: “The NCSC is committed to providing young people with opportunities to excel in cyber security, and our work with industry plays a vital role in this.
“We are pleased that HOST will be piloting our CyberFirst Schools initiative in the North West on our behalf and welcome their support in developing the region’s cyber skills ecosystem.”
The CyberFirst programme offers a range of free opportunities aimed at providing young people the skills, opportunities and exposure they need to thrive in cyber security.
Travel Counsellors calls to new franchisees as June bookings continue to soar in a record-breaking month
(30 June 2022) Manchester based Travel Counsellors, one of the UK’s leading independent travel companies continues to break all records, with nearly 60 Travel Counsellors (TCs) recording their strongest ever sales month in June.
One TC generated the highest number of sales ever recorded for a single person in the company’s history, at £1.5 million. This highlight follows six month’s record-breaking performance, with sales running at 150 percent of pre-pandemic levels. The company also welcomed a record 18 new Travel Counsellors business owners this month, with ten of these coming from outside the travel industry.
As bookings continue to go from strength to strength, the company is looking to recruit more TCs to maximise growing demand. The Travel Counsellors’ community consists of over 1,500 TCs in the UK alone, from leisure and corporate travel and non-travel backgrounds. Many of those with travel experience are joining Travel Counsellors to stay in a profession they love, whilst benefitting from the flexibility, care and support that the Travel Counsellors’ model offers.
Those with no travel experience have joined the Travel Counsellors Academy, which provides training and mentoring for entrepreneurs wanting a career change and to start their own business in the travel industry. The six-month on boarding programme means that Academy trainees train on the job, they are able to start making bookings from week two, whilst taking advantage of the comprehensive support offered by the training team. An entrepreneurial mind-set, a passion for travel, and being brilliant with people are the only pre requisites.
There are six different entry routes to becoming a Travel Counsellor and a dedicated Franchisee Team is on hand to advise on the best route for each individual. Travel Counsellors’ ethos is to put people at the heart of everything, from providing entrepreneurs with the tools, technology and support to build flourishing leisure and corporate travel businesses, to providing customers with the best possible travel experience.
Kirsten Hughes, UK managing director at Travel Counsellors, said: “We have had a tremendous six months and our record-breaking June shows no sign of slowing down. We are actively looking for new franchisees and can offer ambitious individuals the opportunity to work flexibly and be in charge of their own destiny. This is something that we know many are searching for after reassessing their own personal goals over the last two very difficult years. Franchisees with Travel Counsellors not only get to work in an aspirational industry where no two days are the same, but they also receive the support of an incredibly experienced and supportive community. So if the time is right to join our expanding business, please give us a call and speak to our franchisee team.”
The future looks bright for Travel Counsellors; the company has already generated more departures for June to October than in 2019 and has generated nearly £100 million bookings for 2023.
Fully-funded support for hospitality sector to drive recruitment and boost growth
People working across Greater Manchester’s hospitality scene are being offered fully-funded opportunities to drive productivity and progression following the effects of Covid-19.
Backed by Sacha Lord, Greater Manchester’s Night Time Economy Adviser, Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s (GMCA) three-year Skills for Growth programme aims to upskill and retrain employees to aid staff retention, boost morale and attract new staff into the industry.
Through the programme’s bespoke Skills for Growth – SME Support service, which is being delivered by GC Business Growth Hub, businesses in the city-region can work with qualified Skills Coaches for up to six months who will offer an in-depth business diagnostic and workforce development plan tailored to achieve the business’ growth ambitions as well as creating personal employee development plans and signposting to appropriate training courses.
Speaking about the programme, Mr. Lord said: “This is huge for the hospitality sector. We have seen an exodus of workers over the past two to three years and many operators are having huge difficulties either attracting new staff to plug skills gaps, or financing training programmes to upskill existing employees.
“This programme offers hope to operators across Greater Manchester’s hospitality and night-time economy sector and will give them a real helping hand through these difficult economic times.”
Hospitality is an important sector for the city-region, accounting for approximately 86,000 jobs, equating to more than 6% of Greater Manchester’s workforce.
However, the sector has suffered astronomically due to the Covid-19 pandemic and is now experiencing an increase in job vacancies at much higher levels than seen pre-pandemic. As of August 2021, there were around 2,500 unfulfilled hospitality jobs in Greater Manchester.
Skills for Growth tackles challenges like this in hospitality – and in other industries – by working directly with businesses to understand their needs and offering responsive support.
Cheadle based events business, Fresh Group, has seen staff undertake 96 training courses since engaging with Skills for Growth – SME Support, which have helped to create four new jobs, increase productivity by 20 per cent and make £18,000 in savings.
Kelly Humphreys, Head of Support, Fresh Approach UK, said: “We’ve had a great experience with the Growth Company, accessing funded training for over half our team.
“We would not have been able to offer this number or variety of training to the team without the support of the team at Skills for Growth – SME Support or the funding towards training.”
One key part of the programme is the Greater Manchester Skills Map – an online resource pulling together fully funded commissioned provision across a number of industries as part of the wider Skills for Growth programme as well as other training opportunities outside of Skills for Growth that are available to businesses and individuals in Greater Manchester.
The resource acts as a ‘one stop shop’, making navigating the skills system much easier for employers and learners.
Currently, the directory holds information from more than 200 training providers, including top universities, colleges and commercial organisations and lists more than 2,000 different training courses as well as 457 apprenticeship programmes.
The resource is open to all SMEs in Greater Manchester but for full access, businesses must be registered on the programme.
Some of the training listed on GM Skills Map specific to the hospitality industry include:
- Hospitality and catering (food production and cooking)
- Food safety
- Hospitality leadership
- Security and customer service programme
- Equality and diversity in the workplace
- Customer service for hospitality
Dawn Duggan, Head of People Skills and Talent at GC Business Growth Hub said: “Businesses across the hospitality industry are feeling the impact of skills shortages and we want to work with as many of them as possible to ensure they are accessing the range of training available to them.
“Skills for Growth is all about helping SMEs, including the likes of bars and restaurants in Greater Manchester, to grow by identifying skills gaps and providing both the businesses and individuals with training and development to fill them.
“Hospitality businesses that work with us also get the chance to shape the future of the training landscape in Greater Manchester. When we identify skills gaps we feed this information back to Greater Manchester Combined Authority who then look to develop bespoke, fully funded training to support others in the city-region’s hospitality workforce to thrive.
“We know that it’s a challenging time for the hospitality industry and we’d urge any business that thinks they could use some help with skills shortages to get in touch to see what we can do for them.”
Skills for Growth is funded through the European Social Fund (ESF) and is an innovative £42m programme that has been developed to fill skills gaps in a number of industries in Greater Manchester.
There are two key strands to the programme; skills training delivered by a number of commissioned providers focusing on upskilling workforces in named sectors and, wraparound SME support for all industries delivered by GC Business Growth Hub.
So far, nine partners have been brought on board offering fully-funded training to businesses and those working across the digital, health and social care, construction, manufacturing, retrofit and logistics industries.
For more information about the Skills for Growth programme, visit www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/skillsforgrowth. Or, to find out more about Skills for Growth – SME Support, visit www.skillsforgrowthsme.co.uk.
Manchester-based entrepreneur announced as Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2022 finalist
Manchester based Claire Turpin has been recognised as one of the best in the business after being named as a finalist in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards.
Eco-luxe activewear brand CONTUR creates shape-enhancing activewear designed to flaunt the way women look, feel and perform as they move effortlessly between spin class and street, lunch date and lifting.
Designed and manufactured in the UK, CONTUR’s range of sports crops, vests and leggings use super-soft textiles fashioned in Italy from ECONYL (repurposed nylons), ocean plastics and recycled cotton. The resulting product range is a collection of premium activewear which enhances women’s natural curves with unparalleled muscular compression, shape retention, abrasion resistance and breathability – as they work on their health, fitness and life.
Claire Turpin is one of the shortlisted business leaders from across the nation to have been selected out of over 5,300 entrants – the most the awards has ever had.
The Great British Entrepreneur Awards, in partnership with Starling Bank, acknowledges and champions the hard work and uplifting stories of business owners across the UK, with an emphasis on their journey and resilience over financial achievements.
Twelve awards will be given out per region for categories including Disruptor of the Year, Entrepreneur for Good Award, and the Great British Entrepreneur of the Year. Notable winners from previous years include Social Chain founder Steven Bartlett, who went on to become the youngest ever investor on BBC’s Dragon’s Den.
This year’s awards will also feature a brand new award highlighting the organisations investing in the training and development of young people. The John Caudwell Blaze Your Own Trail Award looks to recognise outstanding examples of businesses offering apprenticeships, vocational training, and diversity and inclusion initiatives, all in the name of improving young people’s access to work.
The winners will be announced at a Grand Final, held at the Grosvenor Hotel in London on 21st November.
This year is the 10th anniversary of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards. The alumni has collectively generated over £30 billion in revenue and employed more than 450,000 people.
To mark the milestone year for the programme, entrants will have the chance to win over £30,000 worth of marketing support and a tree will be planted for every application submitted with the support of Ecologi.
Founder of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, Francesca James, said the quality of this year’s entrants exemplified the strength of entrepreneurship across the UK: “The quality of applications is consistently excellent year on year, but we have been especially blown away by the innovation, drive and determination demonstrated this year. Shortlisting from so many inspiring contenders has been more challenging than ever, with many deserving cases put forward and an ever-growing business community thriving across the country.
“From the pandemic to the ongoing cost of living crisis, business owners haven’t had it easy over the past few years, but it’s a testament to the tenacity and perseverance of these entrepreneurs that they have continued on their path and refused to give in.
“This year’s finalists should be so proud of what they’ve already achieved both in business and in being shortlisted for an award – we’re looking forward to seeing everyone at the Finals and unveiling the winners!”
Anne Boden MBE, Founder of Starling Bank, headline partner of the Awards, said: “Congratulations to all those businesses who have made the shortlist. It’s great to see the passion, resilience and amazing ingenuity from entrepreneurs across so many categories.”
ROWAN SETS UP NEW LEADERSHIP ADVISORY TEAM
Rowan Executive Search has set up a new advisory team to help high-growth firms optimise the value of their leadership team’s performance through leadership design, development and change.
This includes the development of the individual’s and team’s capability and development of both physical and cognitive diversity amongst the leadership team through executive change.
The new service offering reflects the additional capability brought to Rowan as a result of the strategic investment made last year by The LCap Group.
LCap (Leadership Capital) is a professional services and software developer whose digital insights support critical decision-making in developing effective leadership teams by evaluating the value of the current team against their business objective.
In developing its suite of products, LCap worked with experts across data science, psychology and leadership, including Adrian Furnham, one of the world’s leading psychometricians who specialises in the behaviour of leaders.
Adrian, who has worked at University College London and the University of Oxford, has published more than 1,300 academic papers and 95 books.
The software analysed how over 7,000 transactions fared following private equity deals over a 12-year period. The objective, data-driven insights provide a reliable and repeatable method to ensure leadership teams have the capability to achieve their primary, business growth objective.
Paul Waite and Johnathan Massey are heading up Rowan’s newly-created leadership advisory team as the company rolls out the capability across its north west client base.
Rowan has access to The LCap Group’s digital analytics products, enabling it to provide insights as to how the physical experiences and capabilities of a company’s leadership team can support them in their ability to achieve their current performance objective. These insights include both leadership development as well an understanding of the least amount of management change a team could go through to deliver maximum impact.
The Leadership Dynamics digital product shares its data with a proprietary psychometric test called PACE, which identifies the behaviours essential for effectiveness in senior leadership roles. To date, over 2,000 PACE assessments have been taken, building a depth of insight that is science and data-led.
Owner-founders, chief executives, chairs and investors across the UK’s private capital markets are among those using Leadership Dynamics, for performance analytics, alongside PACE for behavioural analytics, on their high growth-focused leadership teams. Over 300 successful searches have been completed using LCap’s proprietary technology.
Rowan has already seen considerable interest across the north west for the new service offering and will continue to expand the leadership advisory team, underpinned by the analytical capability brought to them via The LCap Group.
Rowan has already used this product, to great success, to support family businesses planning for the next generation, and as a management due diligence exercise for private equity. This includes helping an entrepreneur to crystallise his position within an international business and supporting LDC’s latest investment.
Rowan, which has offices in Manchester and Chorley, specialises in securing the right talent to strengthen the boards and leadership teams of privately and family-owned SMEs as well as high growth companies backed by private equity.
Johnathan said: “A report in 2020 by global management consulting firm Bain cited leadership quality as the single most important reason for business success and the second most important reason for why companies were not successful.
“Leadership Dynamics supports an understanding of leaders and leadership teams by providing an additional perspective through its objective, data-driven insights. These insights consider the team’s structure, experience, behaviours and, critically, the team’s overall behavioural complementarity. When these variable factors are aligned and working with each other, performance follows.
“Both Leadership Dynamics and PACE provide incredibly powerful insights, empowering the business owner to use their experience, knowledge and insights on the individual leader, leadership team and business performance, to make critical people decisions. Our insights support critical decision-making on how and where the leadership team can develop and ultimately, improve business performance. The best plan for growth is only as good as the team’s capability to deliver.
“We know that, as businesses develop, the challenges change and so do the demands on the leadership team. In some circumstances the leadership team needs to operate differently with each other, in other instances new skills and experiences are required, but in all instances the leadership team need to operate effectively at all times.
“Our new leadership advisory offering is a logical extension to the services we already offer, and we have received some very positive feedback from clients who have bought Leadership Dynamics and PACE.
“The whole process takes about three weeks from start to finish, so it is quite rapid. The outcomes are objective and robust, as they are based on measurable data.”
Paul said: “We have ambitious plans for Rowan and we are confident, with the investment from LCap and the access we now have to its suite of digital analytics products, that we will continue to offer our clients the support they need to focus on growing their businesses.
“We strongly believe that leadership is the primary lever for value creation and are delighted to have this opportunity to work with the north west’s most ambitious companies.
“We regularly find that successful businesses which are performing well today do so in a way that is unique to their circumstances. But, as those businesses grow and their circumstances change, performance can be impacted, meaning the leadership team needs to adapt and evolve to remain as effective today as they were when they began.
“This prospect for some can be quite daunting, whilst others are happy to readily accept it, but whichever side of the spectrum an owner-founder may stand, they need support to develop the effectiveness of the leadership team without losing the cultural DNA of the company.
“We will continue to work with owner-founders and the investment community to ensure they have access to the leaders their businesses need to continue to grow. Powered with Leadership Dynamics and PACE, we are excited by the support our new offering will be able to provide.
“We read about how we are all living in a digital age, but up until now that has not been reflected in the tools our industry use or the capabilities we collectively have developed. Using data science to evaluate a leadership team’s capability so we can predict their performance is an invaluable insight that opens up a different conversation which up until now was only ever discussed using hindsight. We now can offer our clients foresight.”
Transformation of Salford’s Middlewood Locks to continue with £30m Government Levelling Up deal
Homes England, the Government’s housing and regeneration agency, has agreed a £30m loan to continue the transformation of Middlewood Locks in Salford.
The agreement with Middlewood Locks KLM, a partnership between Scarborough Group International and its joint-venture partners Metro Holdings and Hualing Group, will see 189 new homes built as the third phase of the 25-acre brownfield site.
Middlewood Locks is a significant regeneration project in Salford, being created over a number of phases. Once complete, it will deliver over 2,000 homes, 900,000 sq. ft of commercial space, including a hotel and leisure amenities set in a calm canal side environment with 4.5 acres of public realm and event space.
Just a stone’s throw from Salford Central station and a short walk from Manchester’s Spinningfields business district, the site includes substantial public realm within the design, incorporating the attractive waterside setting of the restored Manchester, Bolton and Bury canal.
Housing Minister Rt Hon Stuart Andrew MP said:
“The regeneration of our towns and cities is a key part of our levelling up mission. I am pleased to see the progress being made at Middlewood Locks, a major regeneration project for Salford that will deliver vital new homes for the city, create jobs and boost the wider economy. It is a fantastic example of our brownfield-first plan to transform disused land into thriving communities.”
Planning consent was granted last year for the Railings at Middlewood Locks following the successful completion and sell out of 1,117 apartments in phases one and two. The multi-award-winning new neighbourhood is already thriving with over 1,300 people living and working at Middlewood Locks with a recent report highlighting a £260 million contribution to the Greater Manchester economy so far.
Peter Denton, Chief Executive at Homes England, said:
“With the first two phases of Middlewood Locks now complete, we’re already seeing the transformational impact that this scheme is having on the local area. This latest funding will help to bring forward the next phase and add a new community to the already vibrant neighbourhoods created there.
“It is urban regeneration schemes like Middlewood Locks that will support the levelling up of towns and cities, creating places where people want to live, work and play.”
The funding comes from the Government’s Levelling Up Home Building Fund, which provides development finance to small-medium housebuilders to help diversify the market and build much needed homes and communities.
This deal marks the second commitment made by Homes England to Middlewood Locks, after the first phase of the project benefitted from both short and long-term loans to support the creation of 1,100 homes, supported by vital infrastructure. The approval of both of these loans for one project is rare and underlines the agency’s belief in the importance of the project to the community and wider area.
Kevin McCabe, Chairman at Scarborough Group International, said:
“Securing this funding from Homes England marks a significant step forward in the expansion of our award-winning, mixed-use neighbourhood at Middlewood Locks.
“Not only does it reinforce our long-standing relationship with Homes England, it also underlines our joint aspiration for creating a vibrant city centre community through the delivery of a further 189 high-quality homes, together with supporting amenity space and public realm.”
With a broader commitment to place-making, Middlewood Locks is just one of the schemes Homes England is supporting in Salford. The English Cities Fund, Homes England’s long-standing partnership with Legal & General and Muse Developments, has also secured a £2.5bn, 240-acre scheme at Salford Crescent in partnership with Salford City Council and the University of Salford, which will bring over 3,000 homes. It will also deliver up to 1 million sq ft of space to innovate and collaborate, 1 million sq ft of offices, retail, and leisure space, and a new multi-modal transport hub with active travel at its heart to the city, all set within swathes of green space.
Extraordinary early years superstar makes inaugural Business Women in Education list
Danielle Hamer from Prestwich, Manchester, a Regional Director at Bright Horizons, is named in the very first Business Women in Education Women to Watch list 2022.
Danielle is one of 70 business women to feature in the list, which celebrates women who are driving change, breaking glass ceilings and supporting their peers in education. Full details of the inaugural list are here.
Danielle commented: “It is an incredible honour to receive this recognition. I am proud to lead such an amazing team. We all look to make sure every day that the Early Years for a child are the best they can possibly be. Wellbeing is at heart of our approach to our care and our curriculum. We help children flourish today, so they are ready and prepared for tomorrow. I am fully committed to ensuring that skilled and well-supported practitioners are key to the quality of our Early Years services.”
Danielle Hamer is a mum of three boys and began her childcare career in 1995 when she started as a newly qualified NNEB in a small nursery working in the baby room. She managed her first nursery by the time she was 25 years old and progressed to a Regional Director in 2017. Today Danielle is responsible for the daily operations at 35 Bright Horizons nurseries across the Northwest. She looks to ensure high quality care and education for children and support to Nursery Managers in achieving optimal performance at their individual nursery settings. Ofsted have graded 50% of the nurseries in her region as ‘Outstanding’ with the rest graded as ‘Good’ as they eagerly await new inspections.
Ros Marshall, Managing Director UK at Bright Horizons, said: “Danielle truly deserves to be on this list of inspirational women in education. Having known her personally for over 15 years I can say with confidence that her passion, love and professionalism always shine through. Danielle supports her colleagues every single day in delivering exceptional care and education. These formative years between 0 and 5 are crucial in the emotional, social and physical development of all children and the part Early Years plays to help shape the future of our society is so vital. It is wonderful to see high calibre educational leaders like Danielle recognised by wider networks for the phenomenal work that they do.”
