Business News

The West Midlands is driving towards a clean and green transport future as the region seeks better ways of managing our road networks and harness new ideas and new technology.

That was the message from West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) interim chief executive Laura Shoaf in a keynote speech to transport industry leaders at the Highways UK conference at the NEC in Birmingham.

Every 24 hours, more than 8,000 tonnes of food, products and other essentials pass over the England-Scotland border at Gretna in freight trains - the greenest way of transporting food, drink and other essentials in bulk.

As Scotland does not have any deep-sea container ports, it relies on the West Coast main line to keep supplies moving north.

Appointments have been made to two key positions as part of Birmingham city council’s aim to drive forward its priorities.

Paul Kitson will become Strategic Director of Place, Prosperity and Sustainability; Richard Brooks will be the Director of Strategy, Equality & Partnerships. The design of the core leadership team and council priorities were set out and approved in the cabinet report Investing in our Future.

A leading Midlands-based engineering firm has been recognised for its work in building young futures with a new award from a government-backed accreditation.

And the badge highlights the firm as one of Britain’s brightest businesses investing in the STEM skills agenda. Birmingham-headquartered adi Group has received the new Gold Award from The 5% Club, introduced this year as an employer benchmarking programme from the business organisation.

Winch & Co have announced that it has completed the acquisition of Eclipse Distribution, a haulage and logistics business based in Loughborough, founded in 1989. 

The boutique private equity firm based in Leeds city centre said the acquisition outlines its latest investment mandate to find logistics and distribution businesses by which it will grow its group.

House-hunters in the West Midlands looking for a new home in time for Christmas are being encouraged to consider Bromford’s Blythe Valley development in Solihull, where they could be gifted a £500 Argos voucher.

Blythe Valley consists of a wonderful collection of two-bedroom Shared Ownership apartments, surrounded by green open spaces and great transport links, making them more than ideal for first-time buyers and young professionals alike.

Eight locally-led projects designed to offer people new skills and new opportunities have been awarded more than £5m funding as part of the Government’s plans to level up communities.

These include skills training for those impacted by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic and projects to close gaps in support for key groups such as the over 50s and those with a history of offending.

Two-thirds of the British public recognise the railway as a greener mode of transport - and yet 73% of this group still primarily use cars to get around.

That was the key finding of a national survey carried out by Network Rail as part of the industry-wide ‘We Mean Green’ campaign to encourage travellers to make greener travel choices.

The UK’s first housing provider to commit to a digital-only telecare system has had its innovation recognised with an accolade at this year’s Health Investor Senior Awards.

Housing 21, a leading not-for-profit provider of Retirement and Extra Care Living for people over the age of 55, and Appello, a Technology Enabled Care (TEC) provider, jointly won the Best Use of Technology in Senior’s Housing Award.

A new survey from rental platform LettingaProperty.com has revealed how hugely important green issues have become to the UK’s renters. A staggering 98% of respondents said that they would prefer a property that was optimised to increase energy efficiency, reduce energy costs and minimise environmental impact.

Not only that, but tenants are prepared to pay more to rent in line with their principles. Over half of those surveyed (53%) were prepared to pay more for a greener property.

The £5.7 billion promised in the Budget is not alone enough to level up urban transport says Centre for Cities in new research finding that just four in 10 people in the UK’s largest cities* outside London can reach their city centre by public transport in under 30 minutes.

This is significantly worse than in big European cities where almost seven in 10 people can travel to their city centre in less than 30 minutes.

Two of Manchester’s leading tech companies are leading the race to innovate the global education metaverse with their own science and tech campus, Credersi World, using a mixed reality platform that includes virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).  

While Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has outlined his vision of what a global metaverse might look like, tech and science educators Credersi and 3D tech innovators PixelMax are at the forefront of developing and shaping what the education metaverse will actually be.

Southgate Global, one of Europe’s leading packaging suppliers, which has its main distribution hub in Prologis Park in Minworth, West Midlands, is working on an ambitious plan to replace all its packaging products with an eco-friendly alternative.

As part of its mission to be a leader in the field of sustainable packaging, Southgate Global invested in a specialist team focusing on new product development so that it is well-placed to lead the industry in the development of sustainable packaging products.

Two thirds of consumers (64%) are concerned about climate change, with 4 in 10 (38%) believing that agriculture is a major cause of the problem a new survey reveals. In fact, 1 in 4 (24%) would go as far as to say that farmers have more responsibility to cut emissions than food companies or supermarkets. This is despite the fact that UK farming is actually leading the way in tackling climate change with a self-imposed target of becoming net zero by 2040.

As the clocks go back tonight (Saturday) to mark the beginning of winter, the TUC is calling for better pay and conditions for night-workers – including the 264,000 workers who regularly work night shifts in the West Midlands. Analysis published by the union body reveals that 1 in 3 (33%) night-workers earn less than £10 an hour. This is despite the heightened health risks that come with night work and the disruption it causes to workers’ lives. 

The founder of a Birmingham-based charity that has helped hundreds of people to recover from alcohol and drug addiction has been named as Barclay’s 2021 National Social Entrepreneur of the Year.

Steve Dixon, who started Changes UK in Digbeth in 2009, beat off competition from all over the UK to claim the prestigious prize, with judges praising his pioneering approach to recovery that has seen 85% of the people it engages with complete rehabilitation and move on to independent living.