Welcome from WCC chief executive Monica Fogarty

Hello and welcome to the April edition of Warwickshire Means Business.

This month we are delighted to reveal the first business to receive funding from our £140million Warwickshire Recovery Investment Fund. (WRIF)

The WRIF is an integral part of Warwickshire County Council’s COVID-19 Recovery Plan to help new and existing businesses with their recovery and growth. Forge Care has been loaned £1million under the Business Investment Growth (BIG) pillar of the fund and that funding  will enable the business to open a flagship establishment in Nuneaton for children who have suffered early childhood trauma.

There is so much support available to businesses from ourselves and our partners in the region and new schemes are coming on track all the time. In this edition we report the launch of another strand of the WRIF, the Local Communities & Enterprise Fund, designed to fill a gap in the loans market at a time when mainstream lending is difficult to access.

This edition is also packed with evidence of how support has enabled businesses to survive and strengthen during the last two incredibly difficult years. The Duplex Investment Fund has now passed £1million in loans awarded. The Business Ready programme has engaged with more than 600 businesses in the last three years. We report how Go Cotswolds has benefited, like so many others, from an Adapt & Diversify grant.

I am very proud of the volume, range and quality of help and support available from our Council to businesses of every size and in every sector throughout the County. Please do visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/business-support to find out how we might be able to help you.

In this edition we also look ahead with excitement to this summer's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and the wide region and we hear from two illustrious figures - Lord Coe and Mark Ryder - as they outline the economic benefits the Games will bring to our region. Warwickshire will host the bowls and cycling events...please do add your support to the thousands who will be visiting Leamington and Warwick to watch some world class sport!

MONICA