Welcome from Cllr Izzi Seccombe

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

This month we feature several businesses which have prospered at the business centres run by Warwickshire County Council.

We are very proud of these centres, the facilities they offer in a friendly, welcoming environment and the staff who are always eager to help. Hundreds of small business have fledged at the centres, creating jobs and making a big contribution to keeping Warwickshire's economy strong.

In recent years it has been heartwarming to read in Warwickshire Means Business about the stories behind the SMEs which have blossomed there - and there are none more heartwarming than that of Adam and Paula Bartlett who have made such a success of ElevAero, at the Centenary Business Centre, while creating more time to spend with their young daughters. Adam says that it felt like the team at the CBC were "part of our team." That is lovely to hear.

Congratulations too to Kevin Geehan and all at Edge DPM on their recent Small Business of the Year award. Again it was lovely to read Kevin's assertion that the Sir Frank Whittle Centre in Rugby and its staff  "offer everything we need here to help drive our growth."

That is exactly what our business centre are designed to do. If you or anyone you know requires a friendly, well-equipped, cost-effective base for a new or existing small business please do have a look at https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/businesscentres

Another strand of our support for SMEs is the Small Capital Grant programme and it was our pleasure to help Julie and Jen at the Acupuncture Academy with their much-needed expansion.

Also in this edition of WMB we unveil our Careers Strategy consultation. Please do have a read of that - and please take part in it to help us shape our future careers strategy. Our Skills for Employment team works constantly to create and maintain connections between education-providers and employers and an example of this can be seen in our Special Feature in which we ask  secondary schools and colleges for details of which careers their sixth-form students this summer are most interested.

Also please read about the exciting progress of the Transforming Nuneaton programme and our usual round-ups of upcoming business events and news-in-brief. I hope you enjoy this edition.