How SEEDA Works In Practice

SEEDA Business Link case studies:

Chatham Maritime

Two decades after the closure of Chatham Dockyard, a 140-hectare area has been transformed into a thriving business and residential community by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA). Since 1999 SEEDA has turned Chatham Maritime into a flagship development in the Thames Gateway, with £600m of public and private investment.

Chatham Maritime boasts 120,000m2 of office space providing more than 3,500 jobs. Nearly 1000 homes have been built at St Mary’s Island and another 2000 are planned there and other parts of Chatham Maritime. Construction on SMI is brought forward by a joint venture between SEEDA and Countryside Properties Plc.

Other facilities include a primary school, day nursery, doctors’ surgery, parkland and community centre, plus a three-kilometre riverside walk and cycleway.

The Universities have created 600 jobs and added £10 million per annum to the local economy. There are 6,000 students.

The Regeneration of Hastings & Bexhill

In 2001, the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) brought together several local authorities in the region with English Partnerships, GOSE and the two local MPs to agree a 10-year regeneration programme for the towns. The local economy was characterised by acute market failure and a depressed property market. The programme aims to develop a buoyant local economy and well paid jobs through sustainable development.

What does SEEDA do?

• Facilitates the Task Force, achieving government investment of £38m and adding a further £19 million from core funds. The economic development programme was highlighted by government as an exemplar for urban renaissance.
• Set up Sea Space under the RDA powers to implement the programme.
• Plays a vital role in brokering deals, keeping partners focused on priorities and using its strategic influence to remove barriers.
• Ensures core programmes such as Enterprise Hubs are available in the area.

What has been achieved?

Creative Media Centre: disused town centre sites redeveloped into serviced offices and a focus for creative firms.

Innovation Centre: newly built serviced and flexible work units for technology companies.

University Centre Hastings: multiversity housed in a refurbished town centre facility, led by University of Brighton and delivering HE programmes to help local people increase their skills and prospects.

Marina Pavilion: 1930s seafront building being renovated as a high quality business and leisure venue.

Lacuna Place: high quality office development providing much-needed town centre space to attract new companies to the area.

Queensway: sustainable development to provide quality business spaces for technology and high tech manufacturing firms.

eBiz Centre: provides free, impartial advice to companies on making the most of the internet, broadband and ecommerce.

Hastings Millennium Community: English Partnerships initiative providing sustainable homes and community facilities.

Computer Clubs For Girls

It is imperative that businesses, universities and the public sector can recruit and retain the skilled STEM disciplines ( science, technologists, engineers and mathematicians ) they need, both currently and in the future to create a thriving regional knowledge economy.

The pioneering ‘Computer Clubs for Girls’ (CC4G) initiative was crafted to address the shortage of females working in the ICT arena. SEEDA provided £2.8 million at the outset to develop the CC4G programme in conjunction with e-Skills UK, in direct response to the IT industry’s concerns that the number of women in its workforce has declined from 30 per cent to 22 per cent within the last eight years.

CC4G is aimed at school children between the ages of 10 and 14 years old and the courses are run voluntarily as ‘out of hours’ school clubs. Positive feedback from teachers has described a dramatic increase in girls thinking about careers involving technology. A recent survey indicated that 66 per cent of CC4G members were more likely to consider a career in IT as an attractive and personally fulfilling option.

Since the inception of the CC4G programme in 2004, a total of 12,976 girls from across 785 schools throughout the South East have actively benefited from tailored ICT courses.

The success of the programme in the South East prompted the Government to fund a national roll out through a sum of £8.8 million

The Cake Bake Company

Sharon Goodyer of The Cake Bake Company, who together with partner Martin Major, was responsible for baking the 400 cakes that made the Skoda in the television advert said: “I was delighted that the Business Link website contained the information I was looking for,”

“We’ve now taken on Mr Kipling directly by developing a new product with serious body and soul. Times are very tough at the moment, but we are very well-positioned – September, with a £300,000 turnover, is our best month to date.”

“We did not have any experience of running a business, met with our local Business Link team, and were put in touch with organisations that helped us become a limited company, create a website and introduce new accounting software.
“We had exhausted our own ideas, but Business Link, and our adviser Judy Stanley, opened up many new avenues for us – she gave us sound business advice, telling us to vary our range of products but not step outside what we’re good at.”

Auxetix

Dr Patrick Hook discovered a new way to manipulate fibres which could withstand multiple bomb attacks when used for window protection. After setting up Auxetix to develop and market his idea, he contacted Business Link for support and technical advice.

After taking advantage of a business mentor and involving himself in the Evolve Training Scheme, the decision to focus on the security sector lead to a meeting with J and S Franklin, the Ministry of Defence’s primary supplier of military tents, which hope to use Patrick’s materials to make tents with enhanced protection – a deal which could make the entrepreneur £10 million in royalties. Auxetix has already generated around three quarters of a million pounds for University of Exeter through research activities.

“Business Link couldn’t have been more helpful,” says Patrick, whose product was runner-up in the world finals of the Global Security Challenge and won the Innovation Prize for the Best Technical Textile Development of 2007.

Patrick spoke of “Excellent guidance as a result of business link support regarding investment readiness” and said: “Life would have been a lot harder without Business Link.”

He is now looking to launch the product in the US and is in discussion with US agencies responsible for overseeing homeland securities. “My adviser is now helping me with this next phase of expansion which we’ve now entered.”