Engineering news
Creating new jobs in manufacturing is a priority for the Regional Growth Fund and it hopes that whoever forms the next government will continue with that strategy, its boss has told PE.
RGF director Debbie Gillatt said that at a departmental level there “had always been an appreciation of manufacturing”, no matter what government had been in charge. “But we are pleased that the coalition has been able to place more emphasis on manufacturing as a key part of the UK economy. The banking crisis underlined how important it is to have a diverse economy.”
Earlier this month, the government announced an economic 'Growth Deal' for Birmingham and Solihull, bringing more than £357 million of investment to the region. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg visited precision valve manufacturer HydraForce, which received an award of more than £1.8 million from the Regional Growth Fund. The deal should help deliver at least 13,000 jobs, allowing up to 4,000 homes to be built, and up-skill 7,633 people by 2021, as well as generating up to £80 million in public and private investment, the government claimed.
In addition, the fund, which finances projects across England, is providing £1.8 million towards a £17 million investment which has enabled HydraForce UK to build a new, bespoke 11,160m2 square-foot factory in Birmingham, which will be completed by mid-2015. This will create and safeguard almost 200 long-term jobs while generating upwards of 100 jobs in HydraForce’s supply chain. HydraForce supplies agricultural and construction markets across Europe and last year turned over £53 million.
Dana UK Axle has also secured a £1 million grant to increase capacity and install cutting-edge technology, creating 400 jobs in high-tech manufacturing. Sertec Group secured a grant worth more than £1.4 million to help deliver its project to invest in new stamping equipment and robotic welding cells at their plants in Aston, Coleshill and Tyseley. This will lead to 200 new jobs.
“The focus of RGF has been on rebalancing the economy and looking at places outside London in order to support sustainable job creation in the private sector. The emphasis is on quality jobs being created, jobs that can be sustained for the long term. Manufacturing and engineering jobs have been a big part of what we are looking at, and trying to encourage,” Gillatt said.
She said that the emphasis was on creating “quality jobs” that were genuinely new, rather than shifting work and employment from one company to another. “Some projects are less attractive because there is a finite market for the product or service. If you put money into one company to do more, it is likely to result in another company doing less.
“What we don't want to do is just move jobs around and pay government money to move them from place A to place B. We want to create new jobs that are genuinely new jobs. A lot of that is going to be in the form of import substitution, or increasing exports. And a lot of those jobs are associated with manufacturing – which is brilliant.”
Gillatt said whether this strategy survived the next election “depended on ministers, and what they want to do”.
“But we are very proud of the fund's achievements so far. We hope to be able to support manufacturing going forward,” she said.