Business News

West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Mayor, Andy Street, and Legal & General (L&G) CEO, Sir Nigel Wilson, have today signed a partnership agreement with L&G committing to invest £4bn in regeneration, housing and levelling up across the West Midlands.

The landmark agreement, L&G’s first with a combined authority, sets out a commitment to a seven-year programme of L&G investment, building on the region’s 2022 Investment Prospectus.  

The success story of a community shop offering cut-price food to Wolverhampton families in need was recently shared with a senior Government advisor.

Sir Hector Sants, chair of the Money and Pension Service, heard how people are able to make huge savings on their groceries and other household essentials at the Big Venture Community Shop when he visits the city.

A group of students have been given hands-on experience of housebuilding at a special event hosted by David Wilson Homes in Stanford in the Vale.

17 students from King Alfred’s Academy visited the developer’s River Meadow development on Ware Road to try their hand at a variety of practical skills, whilst learning the ins and outs of the construction industry from the experienced site team.

The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) welcomes Government’s commitment to reforming planning at the heart of the ‘Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill’, but warns that the levelling up agenda will remain compromised as long as the planning system is under resourced.

Victoria Hills, Chief Executive of the RTPI said, “The fact that planning is so central to this bill makes it feel like the profession has been promoted from the Championship to the Premier League.

Birmingham Airport is now using electricity generated solely from renewable sources.  

This is the latest step in the company’s journey to net zero carbon by 2033, set out last month in its roadmap. 

Work to regenerate and restore the faded glory of another Victorian building in Birmingham’s historic Corporation Street is to receive a £9.5m investment from the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA). The ornate Citadel building is being transformed into an eco-friendly hybrid mix of office, retail and social space, helping to bring new life and vitality to what had traditionally been the city’s premier shopping street. 

The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) welcomes the inclusion of the planning system within the ‘Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill’. Planners can be an asset to the Bill, increasing living standards and home ownership, cultivating pride in place, improving transport infrastructure and population health and strengthening local leadership.

The CISI plays an incredibly important role, often below the radar, in helping to boost the development of financial services education and skills, both in the UK and emerging markets, says Nikhil Rathi, CEO of the FCA.

Mr Rathi was speaking at the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) 30th anniversary dinner at Guildhall, London 5 May 2022.

The reasons behind training your employees up are varied. First of all, you have those kinds of training which you have to engage in by law; that would include fire safety, health and safety, and related matters.

Then there are cultural training programs, where you are trying to ingratiate your company’s way of doing things into the minds of your employees.

Business leaders from across the West Midlands and the energy industry have come together to discuss how a new devolution deal with government could give the region far greater security over its future energy supplies and help achieve its ambitious net zero target. The Energy Crisis Roundtable saw leading companies and business bodies discuss their most pressing energy concerns and what could be done regionally to tackle these challenges, including the powers they would like to see transferred from Whitehall to the West Midlands to strengthen industry resilience.

If the pandemic has taught us anything about work, it's that culture has changed, and we are enjoying a newfound freedom; freedom to work in environments that best suit our lives outside of work, and to have meetings how we want them. This has resulted in great rises in productivity (72%) but not without expense, as 34% admit to feeling less creative while working from home, according to new research from HP Inc., which surveyed the feelings of UK office workers on hybrid working environments. 

Loom, the video communication platform for async work, launched all-new video editing tools to its cloud-based platform. Now, users can use the new video stitching capabilities to record at different times, on different devices, or with different people to create one powerful video.

This newly launched video stitching capability unlocks a new level of collaboration and async work.

City of Wolverhampton’s new i9 development has been shortlisted in the net zero category at the Construction Excellence West Midlands Awards - highlighting the council’s environmental sustainability credentials.

It is the second time within a month the eye-catching office development has been named as a contender for a major honour after also making the final cut for the best commercial development in the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) UK awards.

National legal and professional services group Ampa, which has an office hub in Birmingham, has completed its merger with leading Sussex law firm Mayo Wynne Baxter. The firm is the group’s South East legal anchor brand and brings Ampa to a turnover above £100m in the next financial year and a group of more than 1,200 people.

The UK’s world-leading insurance industry will be able to invest tens of billions of pounds more in long-term UK infrastructure and green projects under proposals that have been published.

The consultation on reforms to the Solvency II regime capitalises on the UK’s post-Brexit freedoms to spur a vibrant, innovative and internationally competitive insurance industry.

Chelmsford-based Barratt and David Wilson Homes Eastern Counties has made a donation of £7,700 to CHESS Homeless (Church Homeless Emergency Support Scheme), one of its Charities of the Year for 2022.

CHESS operates 13 properties in Chelmsford that offer temporary accommodation and support services for up to 66 single homeless adults. The charity ensures that people who find themselves homeless are given the support they need to move forward and live a good, independent life.