Over 6,000 businesses in the Liverpool City Region have benefited from practical business support through the Local Growth Hub, which continues to unlock and support business growth within the region.
In the last 12 months, the Liverpool City Region Local Growth Hub, has worked with 6,341 City Region businesses to help them gain access to practical business support & advice, which is predicted to result in the future creation of 2,584 jobs.
The service, which is backed by The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), was launched in 2016 to specifically unlock barriers to business support and guidance across the region by increasing the awareness of the public & private sector support available to entrepreneurs, SMEs and Scale-up companies.
Managed by Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and delivered through a network of regional partners comprising Halton Borough Council, Knowsley Chamber of Commerce, Liverpool Vision, The Women’s Organisation, Invest Sefton, St Helens Chamber and Wirral Chamber of Commerce, each offers face-to-face business diagnostic, brokerage, advice and mentoring, making access to specific support simpler and more joined up for local businesses.
Collectively, the Local Growth Hub brokers carried out 3,000 in-depth business health checks in 2017, working in collaboration with each business to identify their immediate and longer-term support needs, including their goals and opportunities for growth.
Over 4,000 businesses were brokered into other areas of support, which included commercial advice, property support and access to finance, delivered through a strategic partnership with MSIF and the Finance Hub.
2017 also saw over 1,500 businesses referred into the 15 ERDF support programmes which have been set up for business in three key strategic areas: Innovation, Business Growth and Low Carbon – all co-ordinated through the local growth hub.
The Enterprise Hub Business Start-Up Programme, dedicated to assisting entrepreneurs, supported 879 individuals to evaluate their ideas and develop new skills, with 2,124 individuals registering to receive dedicated assistance, and thanks to the programme support, 400 new businesses have been created across the Liverpool City Region.
LEP managing director, Mark Basnett, said: “Small businesses and entrepreneurs are at the heart of our economy and it’s hugely encouraging to see what the Local Growth Hub has helped them to achieve in the last 12 months. That over 6,000 businesses across the region have benefitted from the support available is a great credit to our regional partners on the ground and the service they provide.
“Supporting small businesses is at the core of what the LEP has set out to achieve and our priority for 2018 continues to be to simplify and co-ordinate the business support landscape through the Local Growth Hub, providing a simple, local point of access, supporting the growth of the business community and the wider Liverpool City Region economy.”