Development works within the Northampton Waterside Enterprise Zone have helped the area double its net company growth in the first 6 months of 2013.
Research figures from Duport show that the number of company registrations in the first 6 months of this year reached an all-time high, rising 24% on the previous year.
Cllr David Mackintosh, leader of Northampton Borough Council, said:
“The huge amount of activity in Northampton during the past year has created a real buzz.
“These figures go to show how driving ambition and positive relationships between the public and private sectors can achieve fantastic results.”
Three of these companies located within the Enterprise Zone are being helped by government to grow even faster.
Ranheat Engineering, Mahle Powertrain and the National Lift Tower are among 17 companies that will receive £735,000 from NEP’s Northamptonshire High Performance Technology (HPT) Investment Programme, which is part-funded through the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
Ranheat specialises in the production and fitting of industrial wood burning systems but had no specialised area for the production of control panels.
Chris Franklin, Managing Director at Ranheat, said:
“The company is seeing good growth within the renewable energy sector.
“Our increased activity with our boilers has seen an increase in the number of panels needed per year. The award of the grant has given us the confidence to go ahead with our expansion plans.”
Cllr David Mackintosh added:
“Northampton has many leading technology firms and it is fantastic that some of them need to expand.
“Our partnership approach means we can ensure this need is satisfied as quickly as possible to everyone’s benefit.
“There is a huge amount of activity in Northampton at the moment, with 22 regeneration schemes under way or complete, proving our achievements match our ambition.”
For more information on Northampton Waterside Enterprise Zone see: http://northamptonez.co.uk/enterprise-zone/.
