Chamber News

Ask most businesses in Norfolk what they need to help them to create improved economic growth and deliver more jobs and the majority will say improved road infrastructure would be a good start. Ask businesses in Great Yarmouth what they need and they will tell you improvements to the Acle Straight and improved links into the town and the port.

One of those improved links is a £112m third river crossing, identified five years ago, spanning 50m from the Southtown area to the South Denes area of Great Yarmouth. Supporters of this river crossing say it is crucial to cutting congestion, supporting regeneration and improving links to the town’s port.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, gave the go ahead to a river crossing in Lowestoft in March’s pre-election budget and Norfolk County Councillors fear that the Great Yarmouth equivalent may be in danger of being left behind. They are planning to lobby Norfolk’s MPs, with the support of New Anglia LEP to push the Great Yarmouth river crossing to the top of the agenda.

Colleen Walker, Chairperson of the County Council’s Economic Development Sub committee said:

“It is essential that the crossing happened.” She went on to say “We are going to lobby MPs for the money for the river crossing. We are shovel ready to go and this is vital not just for Yarmouth but for the rest of Norfolk. We cannot just sit on our hands.”

Commenting on the latest news, Andy Penman, President of Great Yarmouth Chamber Council said:

“Pressure needs to be stepped up over the third river crossing for Great Yarmouth. Norfolk Chamber will also call on our local MPs to lobby for the necessary funding to deliver the river crossing for Great Yarmouth. A crossing at this point would relieve traffic congestion, improve connectivity to the South Denes employment area and open up more regeneration opportunities, which are vital for the improvement of Great Yarmouth.”

The recent news headlines outline a possible cash crisis facing Norfolk’s schools. 91% of secondary schools stated they will have to cut faculty/subject budgets; 93% of secondary schools identified that they will have to cut ‘other resources’; and 39% of secondary schools advised that they will have to reduce teaching staff through redundancies either in 2015 or 2016. It is therefore even more important that the Norfolk business community engages with the local education establishments.

Soft skills and accessing a future workforce are key issues for the Norfolk business community. Norfolk Chamber is passionate about developing the talent of Norfolk’s young people and we are working with our key stakeholders to help bridge the gap between the world of education and the world of work.

Many businesses rely on the education system to help equip young people with the soft skills and attitude they need to successfully make the transition to work and we will continue to work with our education and business members to ensure that we work in partnership towards closing this gap.

For those schools that are already part of the Chamber network, they are aware that the Chamber can provide the school’s head teacher/principal and members of staff with opportunities to attend Norfolk Chamber events. This provides them with easy access their local business networks. Norfolk Chamber also actively welcome groups of member school’s students to attend our large scale events, such as B2B and any specific events aimed at both young people and businesses.

Norfolk tourism businesses are enjoying a bumper year with huge confidence about the school summer holidays to come, a recent survey has revealed.

The latest tourism business confidence monitor commissioned by Visit Norfolk reports that 82% of businesses are satisfied with their performance since Easter with 39% seeing an increase in their volume of visitors/guests since last year.

Nearly 90% of businesses are confident about their prospects for the critical school holiday period while six out of 10 are optimistic they will generate growth throughout the year.

More than two thirds of businesses describe their level of bookings to the end of August as “good or very good”

The survey compiled by Destination Research from data supplied by nearly 200 businesses, highlights the importance of refurbishment work and site improvements in driving performance. Businesses are also investing more in marketing reveals the monitor.

Visit Norfolk brand manager Pete Waters said the survey showed the county’s £2.8bn a year visitor economy was “in a good place”

“Our visitor attractions are currently investing over £7 million in improvements, particularly with weather-proofing and that will help drive the year-round visitor offering that we need to sustain full-time employment.”

Mr Waters said the “game-changer” would be the changing the mind-set that the Norfolk tourism season was 12 weeks of the year.

Caroline Williams CEO Norfolk Chamber said “It is good to hear that our tourism businesses are optimistic about the next few months, however we need to be seen a year-round visitor destination Norfolk’s year-round visitor offering is probably better than any other county and we need to be seen.

“Improved infrastructure is needed to build on the current success. The proposed Northern Distributor Route around the east of Norwich will help unlock parts of our coast in particular, the unique Deep History Coast. Our rural businesses need improved Broadband speeds and reliable mobile signals to be able to increase their productivity levels”

Chamber gold patron Aviva has announced that they will create 400 jobs in Norwich as it moves to restructure the business following its takeover of Friends Life.

This move will trigger the closure of motor claims offices in Manchester and Stretford and whilst some of its staff from these area may relocate it is expected that the majority of jobs will be filled from Norfolk.

Andrew Morrish, Aviva’s claims operations director, advises that they are looking for a wide range of people with customer service experience from working parents, recent graduates, apprentices and older workers. Each new member of staff will be put through a training programme so direct experience is not needed.

Mr Morrish said “We want to create varied careers for people. We need to recruit motor claims staff, but they might move into the life division, or the tech business. There is a great career with Aviva in Norwich. It is unusual to have a company like Aviva that has a range of different divisions in one place”

Caroline Williams CEO Norfolk Chamber said “This is great news for Norfolk. The fact that Aviva sees Norwich as a ‘centre of excellence’ for their business will help to confirm Norwich as the important business centre that it is and increases its visibility. Aviva will be offering many different career opportunities for our young people as well as to those with different abilities”

Chloe Smith MP for Norwich North said “A major national employer is recognising that we can have excellence in Norwich. A move of this size brings other opportunities with it”

Mr Morris said Aviva wanted to reinforce its commitment to Norwich by engaging more with the local business community. “Getting support from business leaders and being more tuned into what is happening around Norfolk is good for us.”

Following the successful recruitment of an Events Co-ordinator Norfolk Chamber, due to expansion of the team,currently have an exciting opportunity for a 2nd experiencedprofessional to deliver high quality business events in a fast-paced environment.

You will be part of a busy team delivering over 70 events annually across Norfolk, ranging from large scale conferences and exhibitions, to business breakfasts and training. We regularly feature high profile speakers, including George Osborne, Vince Cable and CEOs of leading international businesses. You will be involved in strategic thinking to take our calendar to the next level.

With a proven track record, and three or more years relevant experience, you will be hardworking, innovative and have an understanding of how to market events using with the use of social media and technology.”

The salary will be £16,000 – £20,000 depending on experience.

Other benefits include 26 days holiday per annum, healthcare plan and contributory pension after successful completion of probation.

To apply please send your CVto j[email protected]by4th September 2015.

Job Description

Drivers have been warned to expect overnight closures of the A47 at Postwick, at the eastern end of Norwich Southern Bypass, over the next two weeksstarting on Monday 13 July.

The closures, which are to allow furtherbridge work to be carried out, as part of thePostwick junctionimprovement,will be from 8pm to 6am at the latest.There will be shortdiversions via the slip roads and new link roads.

Norfolk Chamber was proud to be sponsoring the National Apprenticeship Graduation Ceremony at the Corn Exchange in King’s Lynn last night. The Chamber joined with parents, training providers and local employers in congratulating the graduating apprentices, who had successfully completed their apprenticeships.

The apprentices were presented with their scrolls by David Pomfret, Principal of the College of West Anglia and the event was hosted by Dan Bancroft from Mustard TV.

Heather Garrod, President of West Norfolk Chamber Council, said:

“It is important to celebrate what a great achievement it is for those young people who are not only gaining a qualification, through lots of hard work, but from an employer’s perspective, they are also totally work ready, which is one of the key reasons why Norfolk Chamber has sponsored the National Apprenticeship Graduation Ceremony in King’s Lynn.”

Norfolk Chamber is also sponsoring the Apprenticeship graduation ceremony in Norwich, which will be held on Friday 17 July 2015 at St Andrew’s Hall from 6.30pm – 8.30pm.

Chamber highlights its concerns over delays to A47 improvements to Highways England

Jonathan Cage, the Vice President of Norfolk Chamber and Managing Director of Create Consulting Engineers, represented the Norfolk Chamber at the recent meeting of the A47 Alliance. The meeting included a presentation from the Highways England team of AMEY/AECOM, on the feasibility work that has been undertaken to date and the anticipated timeframes for delivery of the improvements to the A47.

Highways England are responsible for the delivery of the improvements to the A47 and they outlined that the three main schemes, which are centred around Norwich, including Burlingham, North Tuddenham and Thickthorn, were all effectively programmed to start work in 2020, with an approximate cost of £300m.

Commenting on the Highways England presentation, Jonathan Cage said:

“Highways England advised that they had assessed each of the schemes to determine whether a Development Consent Order would be required. They acknowledged that a lot of work had been previously undertaken on Burlingham, and that a scheme had been close to being started in the past.”

“However they stated that they needed to review the details and determine whether or not the route was still the ‘preferred route’. It was also essential that a full detailed evidence base was available to back up any future scheme submissions, to ensure that they would stand up to detailed scrutiny at future Inquiry.”

“Highways England believed that this exercise would be completed by October 2015, at which stage they would be able to advise which, if any of the schemes, could be brought forward earlier for implementation. The same criteria would also apply to the Vauxhall roundabout and Gapton Hall roundabout improvements in Great Yarmouth.”

On the length of delay in commencing the improvement works along the A47, Jonathan said:

“I raised the Chamber’s concerns about the delays, especially with respect to Burlingham, and asked why did Highways England need to review the proposals again?” He noted that “it was very unlikely that the traffic flows had changed and the only major thing that had changed since 2006 was that more people had lost their lives.”

With regard to possible severe disruptions whilst the improvement works were being undertaken, Jonathan said:

“I also raised a concern about the potential for all three Norwich schemes to be progressed at the same time, which would effectively result in access to Norwich from all directions being severely disrupted for about 18 months – something that would not be acceptable to the business community. I was informed that it was unlikely that all three would be progressed simultaneously, which would then potentially lead to a further delay on one of the schemes.”

Roger Foulger, the Chair of the A47 Alliance, also highlighted to Highways England, the occasions that both the local MPs and the Norfolk Chamber had written to express their concern at possible delays. Jonathan Cage said: “It was clear that both the MPs and the Chamber correspondence had had an impact on Highways England – however the Norfolk business community, together with the A47 Alliance needs to continue to lobby hard for the improvements to the A47 to be delivered as soon as possible.”

Commenting on the publication of today’s productivity plan, Caroline Williams CEO Norfolk Chamber of Commerce, said:

“Whatever label the Government wish to put on it, we have to tackle deep-rooted, structural problems if we are to have a great economy. Norfolk needs world class infrastructure, a streamlined planning process that serves to aid not delay projects, and, crucially, we must improve our export performance. We must also see better access to finance for businesses – this has been the missing piece of the jigsaw for far too long. These are the fundamentals where the UK has consistently failed to punch its weight and which act as a drag on growth and productivity.”

Commenting on specific measures, Ms Williams added:

Planning reform and house building

“Automatic zoning for brownfield sites sounds good in theory. But not if it means that employment land is gobbled up by residential developers. There is already an acute shortage of sites for business growth in many parts of England, and a residential building boom could make that shortage worse if unchecked. House builders must also be prevented from buying up sites that do not require planning permission, without the intention of developing them within a reasonable timeframe.

“If the proposals put forward today result in less bureaucracy and cost for firms seeking planning permission or much needed infrastructure improvements, they will be welcomed. If not, they will join the graveyard of previous planning reforms where the rhetoric was good, but the reality was something else. Unless planning reform makes things simpler for all businesses – not just house builders – it will fail to deliver its full potential.”

Infrastructure

“There remain unanswered questions on the Government’s infrastructure plans. Our rail network is in serious need of an upgrade. Despite the announcement around governance arrangements, businesses would have liked clearer, firmer commitments on how that will become a reality. The commitment to make a decision on airport capacity by the end of the year is welcome. If the government is serious about boosting productivity then the outcome should already be clear. We need extra capacity and the independent Airports Commission has shown the way forward.”

Compulsory Purchase Orders

The Government is talking of reform to the Compulsory Purchase Order system. And this is an area where reforms are desperately needed – for both house building and business expansion plans alike. The BCC has long said this is a key priority for businesses, and if meaningful reform is delivered it could prove to be a turning point for Britain’s infrastructure projects.

“In particular we would have liked to have seen major reforms to the compensation paid to people affected by infrastructure development, from railways to fracking, from airports to roads. This way Nimbyism can be converted to enthusiasm for the essential development of our economy.

Exports

“Plans to move responsibility for promoting exports to individual departments is to be welcomed if those departments make exports a serious priority. However, if we are to make significant progress in the essential rebalancing of our economy, and address our unsustainably large current account deficit, it will require a radically new approach to export support across the UK. We are consistently punching below our weight when it comes to international trade – we currently export less than the Netherlands, a country a third our size. And the OBR predict that the UK will miss the government’s target of having exports worth £1 trillion by 2020 by more than a third, coming up short by £370bn.

“Without a radical change in the support and encouragement offered to UK businesses, we are compromising our medium and long-term economic growth. The business community will be left feeling this is another missed opportunity to offer a serious boost to current and potential exporters.”

Skills

“When it comes to skills initiatives, the sentiment is right. A post-16 skills system and higher quality vocational education should help to meet local labour market needs.

“The National Infrastructure Plan for Skills sounds like a very promising idea. A genuine long-term strategy and vision for skills would allow businesses to better plan and invest in their workforce, and would help to tackle persistent skills shortages. The Chamber network has experience of developing sector skills plans and so we will be taking a close interest in this and stand ready to offer our help.

“To strengthen the focus on improving skills, we want OFSTED to take data about pupils’ careers and employment outcome more seriously in their inspection regime, so that schools have a greater incentive to make sure they are equipping young people with the skills and experience that employers want.”

Devolution

“Our research shows businesspeople in England broadly support the concept of further devolution to their city or local area. But businesses don’t support devolution for devolution’s sake. They support greater local decision-making if it means greater efficiency and better results. One key challenge in passing more authority to local areas is to make sure it is genuine devolution, and not a proliferation of bureaucracy.”

Review of economic statistics

“An independent review into the quality and delivery of economic statistics for measuring productivity is welcome and long overdue. Economic policy decisions and business confidence are very sensitive to official data on how much the country produces. Ensuring these figures accurately reflect the reality of today’s economy is essential.”

The ONS has published their trade figures today. Caroline Williams CEO Norfolk Chamber of Commerce said:

“On first glance the trade figures are exceptionally good. However, it would be premature to celebrate the virtual disappearance of our trade deficit.

“A few weeks ago the ONS reported a historically high trade deficit in real terms for Q1 2015, coupled with an unsustainably large current account deficit, so we need to look closely at today’s figures against the longer-term trends.

“Beneath the surface we see that exports in current prices were unchanged between April and May and in volume terms exports fell by 3.4%. It’s also important to note that the main reason for the fall in the deficit was the fall in imports, not a significant rise in exports.

“If these figures signal the start of an improving trend then of course that is positive. However, the longer term data suggests that we still have some way to go to close our trade gap for good. Boosting Britain’s exports should be a national priority – this will require greater support for exporters, particularly SMEs, to penetrate growing markets beyond the EU.

“The key is to make it easier for companies to consider trading internationally, and make it a bigger part of our business culture. That’s why the Chambers are building a strong global British business-to-business network is so important, since it helps a company from Bradford, Bristol or Belfast land on its feet in Bogota, Bangkok or Beijing.

“The Norfolk Chamber of Commerce will continue to grow our global business network and deliver real, practical and sustainable support to Norfolk exporters around the world.”

Key details within the report include:

• The UK trade deficit in May 2015 was £0.4bn, compared with £1.8bn in April 2015
• In May 2015, there was a deficit of £8.0bn on goods, partly offset by a surplus of £7.6bn in services.
• In the three months to May 2015 exports to the EU were 13.4% lower than in the same period last year, whereas exports to non-EU were 8.9% higher.
• The May 2015 trade deficit is the smallest since June 2013.

Norfolk Chamber has recently recruited additional members to its Board of Directors. Seven new Board members have been appointed, which takes the Board to a total of 16 members.

Ian Hacon, President of Norfolk Chamber said:

“We were pleased to receive such a large number of applicants for the Board. All of an extremely high calibre, with great all round business skills and experience. This made it very difficult to select a shortlist of candidates for interview and made the decision even tougher for the interview panel to make their final selections.”

“Our new Board members will help give Norfolk Chamber stronger representation geographically, by size of company and by sector and will allow us to truly be the voice of our membership. I am looking forward to working with them all to support and promote issues affecting the business community in Norfolk.”

The new members are:

Alastair MacFarlane Port Manager – East Anglia, ABP

Andrew Sherwood HR Director, Bernard Matthews

Esther Evans Managing Director, STM Packaging Group Ltd

Fiona Ryder Managing Director, Mustard TV

James Mason Commercial Director, Norfolk Training Services

Lynsey Sweales Chief Executive, SocialB Ltd

Simon Watson Partner – Corporate Services, Lovewell Blake

The Norfolk Chamber Board is made up of Chamber members from across the County to ensure that members’ interests are represented at local, county and regional levels.

Following yesterday’s budget, in which the Chancellor outlined many areas that will impact on Norfolk businesses from Corporation Tax reductions to lower National Insurance contributions; changes to the Annual Investment Allowance, to a new National Living Wage; pension reforms; and commitments to childcare. Attached is a summary table which shows all the key announcements.