Business News

The Black Country Chamber of Commerce aims to double the size of the Black Country economy by the end of 2023. £2.5 billion of this growth can come from transport improvements and Chair of the Chamber’s Transport Group Colin Leighfield responds to some recent good news about Birmingham Airport and sets out businesses’ demands for the coming year.

City of Wolverhampton Council and Centro have highlighted the importance of the planned Metro extension to the city centre’s £120 million Interchange. Preparatory works are expected to start later this year on connecting the existing Metro service from Birmingham with the soon-to-be redeveloped railway station via Pipers Row and Railway Drive. New tram stops are proposed at the railway station, and either side of Pipers Row, near Castle Street, directly outside the bus station.

Leader of the City of Wolverhampton Council, Roger Lawrence has unveiled the New Horizons: Our Vision for the City of Wolverhampton in 2030 to city partners. The document, details how the city can secure a sustainable, successful future for the next generation of Wulfrunians, and was drafted following consultation with key city stakeholders. More than 100 representatives from the business, education and public sectors, from around the city and beyond, saw it launched  at a partners event staged at the City of Wolverhampton Science Park.

Hornsey Town Hall’s future has taken further strides forward, with six bidders shortlisted to present innovative ideas for securing the landmark building for generations to come. The bidders were selected from a host of interested groups, who were each asked to complete a detailed "pre-qualification questionnaire" 　highlighting their experience of delivering projects with community benefits. Responses were thoroughly evaluated by the council, the Hornsey Town Hall Creative Trust and property experts GVA.

Almost a half a million female and ethnic minority jobseekers in the finance and IT sectors will not be considered for roles this year purely because of the name on their CV, according to Nottx.com, the UK’s only ‘name-blind’ headhunting platform. The service is applicable to any job applicant, regardless of gender or ethnicity, who wants to work in a diverse workplace, but is especially useful to talented female and ethnic minority job seekers.

A host of community causes have already received a funding boost from Haringey Council’s new ward budget scheme, just six months after it launched. Each of the borough’s wards have been allocated £10,000 to spend on neighbourhood projects under the programme, which launched in July – with local people putting forward ideas on what it should fund.

Figures from the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) today reveal that construction employment in the West Midlands is set to rise by 10,200 in the next five years, with an estimated total of 215,000 jobs predicted in the region by 2020. CITB’s Construction Skills Network (CSN) report forecasts that employment is set to rise at an annual average rate of 1% between 2016 and 2020, with the labouring trade seeing the largest expansion at a rate of 3.7%, followed by bricklayers (3.2%), steel erectors (3.1%) and civil engineers (3%).

Business students at Walsall College had an insight into the inner workings of global banking, with an industry presentation delivered by the Swedish bank, Handelsbanken. The branch manager at Handelsbanken’s recently opened Walsall office, Stephen Breen, along with his colleague Joanna Warburton, from the Regional Personnel department, visited the college’s business hub on Thursday 21^st January and gave an inspiring talk to a class of students.

Following the recent announcement that the UK Government is to clamp down on drink and drug drivers, alcohol and drug safety experts are urging companies to be more vigilant when it comes to their alcohol and drug testing policies. Drugs and alcohol cost British businesses in excess of £6 billion per year in lost productivity and in 2014 alone alcohol accounted for 5,650 accidents and 8,320 casualties on UK roads.

The organisation that helps businesses to export to China has appointed a new adviser in the West Midlands. James Westwood, a 34-year-old Birmingham entrepreneur who set up three businesses in Shanghai over 10 years, joins the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC) as China business adviser for the West Midlands region. Birmingham born and bred, James headed for Shanghai at the age of 23 to work and learn the language and culture.

Councils across the country are to receive a £5m cash boost to tackle rogue landlords in their area, Housing Minister Brandon Lewis announced today. Forty eight councils will share the funding so they can take on the irresponsible landlords that force tenants to live in squalid and dangerous properties, making their lives a misery. The cash will also allow councils to root out more ‘beds in sheds’. Since 2011 nearly 40,000 inspections have taken place in properties with over 3,000 landlords facing further enforcement action or prosecution.

Average pay (median) in the West Midlands is still worth £1,981 less in real terms than it was in 2008 – a shortfall of £38 a week – according to new analysis published by the TUC. The figures confirm that, despite some strengthening of real wages over 2014 to 2015, workers in the region still have a long way to go to restore all the earnings they lost following the longest squeeze on wages since records began in the 1850s.

The Black Country Chamber of Commerce are delighted to announce that they have appointed Keith Bryan as the new Chief Executive. After qualifying as an accountant whilst in the engineering industry, Keith joined the Tarmac Group and rose ‘through the ranks’ to eventually be Managing Director of the £350 million turnover building materials business and a member of the Tarmac Group Executive Committee.

Homes across the South of England are to benefit from environmentally-friendlier drinking water in the new year thanks to a cooling innovation being implemented by leading cooling engineers at Aqua Cooling, which has recently won several substantial deals in the Northern Powerhouse cities including Manchester and Liverpool.

Exploratory plans for a West Midlands sovereign wealth fund and ‘Brummie bonds’ to pay for new homes in Birmingham have been welcomed by business leaders. Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce says the proposals by new Birmingham City Council leader John Clancy to invest the public sector pension pot in new houses and infrastructure could tap into a ‘potentially great untapped asset.’

Birmingham City Council’s efforts to become a better employer for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people have been recognised with another improved ranking in the latest Stonewall Top 100 Employers list. The council is 28^th in the 2016 table - a leap of 31 places from last year’s 59^th and an improvement of 63 places from 2014. In the council’s submission to Stonewall, the leading LGBT charity, a number of initiatives and projects supported by the local authority were outlined.