Powering ahead
With another spate of US firms claiming a stake in the area, Cumbria in North West England is continuing to flourish, particularly in the field of nuclear and environmental technology
Invest in Cumbria, together with its partners, has had another successful operational year following the attraction of more companies from the US to West Cumbria. Under the ownership of Cumbria County Council, the organization has attracted several large nuclear and environmental technology companies since it secured the headquarters of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in West Cumbria. Nuclear Management Partners, featuring URS Washington as a primary partner, is the new owner of the massive Sellafield complex in Cumbria.
Led by its Chief Executive Officer, John Grainger, the dedicated team has spent the past five years looking at maximizing the investment opportunities arising from this announcement. The creation of a virtual investment team in West Cumbria with its primary partner, West Cumbria Vision, has enabled coverage of a number of significant annual events in the US that lead to new contacts and investment possibilities.
Taking advantage of the office and specialist support from the North of England Inward Investment Agency – which has strategic locations throughout the US in addition to its Chicago headquarters – Invest in Cumbria has worked to attract key entrants to the decommissioning market in the UK. The North of England Office is a collaboration of two of the northern Regional Development Agencies, North West Regional Development Agency and One North East. This enables the “super region” to be adequately represented in what is still the UK’s premier country from which inward investment is won. The North American team is bolstered by support from UKTI, the Investment and Trade arm of UK government.
With top-level representation in major sector events held during the year at events at Phoenix Arizona, ETEBA at Knoxville Tennessee and the Exchange Monitor Conference at Amelia Island near Jacksonville, Florida, representatives from Cumbria have been able to make presentations to delegates, and have, through attendances at booths, been able to market the region as a great opportunity for potential relocation to possible investors.
This has led to more than 12 of those companies now having a Cumbrian presence, a fantastic conversion rate compared to traditional returns on inward investment promotion. These companies have experience in the US nuclear clean up programs as well as other large-scale environmental remediation, and were targeted on the basis that they could bring innovative practices to the UK nuclear sector that would not supplant those already in that area.
However, sustainable investment is a whole lot more than the attraction of leading edge commercial companies anxious to get a large slice of decommissioning contracts currently being carried out at nuclear sites throughout the UK. Paramount to any economic benefit for an area is the competence of the local supply chain and its ability to engage with those further up in the chain, particularly at Tier One and Tier Two levels.
The West Cumbria Business Cluster is a vibrant grouping that has organized itself well in terms of positioning its own particular products and services to complement some of the innovative practices that have been imported recently. Invest in Cumbria, along with West Cumbria Vision, supports the group in ensuring that they have had the ability at these overseas events to promote their own capability to potential collaborating partners and press home the message that a strong and diverse supply chain exists in Cumbria to service the nuclear sector.
Invest in Cumbria’s stakeholders rightly view the rationale and existence of economic regeneration bodies as organizations that must claim outputs to justify their continued existence. The strategy and protocols adopted by Invest in Cumbria has seen a very close tie-up with the new vision companies for West Cumbria and Furness, delivering the “Britain’s Energy Coast” strategy. With the sales and marketing lead in the US taken by our colleagues at North of England Inward Investment Agency, budgets have been shared in order to lever in appropriate fiscal and human resources to handle the boom in business from the US.
It is the commercial companies themselves that create the jobs and the opportunity for wealth creation. Recognition of that has led to a complete open book approach by agencies at international and local level, which work together for a common purpose, and the mutual trust that this has engendered will go a long way to ensuring that Cumbria continues to be pre-eminent when attracting business from the US. The announcement of potential new build sites for the next generation of nuclear power made during 2008 has meant increased interest from US utility companies active in that part of the market.
For more information, contact:
Ian Stewart
VP North of England Inward
Investment Agency
3455 Peachtree Road NE
5th Floor
Atlanta, GA 30326
Tel: 404 995 7083
E-mail: ian.stewart@northengland.com
Website: www.northengland.com
John Grainger
Chief Executive Officer
Invest in Cumbria
Cumbria, United Kingdom
Tel: +44(0) 1768 895350
E-mail: johng@investincumbria.co.uk
Website: www.welcometowestcumbria.co.uk
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