Pictured above: Ian Viles
Enterprise agency Erewash Partnership has helped 90 businesses
set up since April, boosting the local economy.
The award-winning Partnership has already exceeded the 78
businesses that it gave a helping hand to in the whole of the
previous financial year.
It has helped 60 business start-ups in Erewash and 30 through
two projects with the Centre of Entrepreneurial Management at the
University of Derby. In all, these have created jobs for 110
people.
The Partnership has a reputation for putting on popular,
well-attended networking meetings and other events where people
wanting to start or have just started up can chat to experienced
business owners who have faced pitfalls and problems and can pass
on valuable advice.
But the Partnership itself, based in the Old Police Station in
Wharncliffe Road, Ilkeston, also advises people on the first rung
of the ladder of setting up and running a business.
So far this year it has given 650 one-to-one advice sessions to
people thinking of starting a business and fledgling firms.
The free, independent advice sessions cover basic items -
everything from drawing up a business plan, bookkeeping, accounts
and cash flow, tax and insurance, marketing, and even how to find
suitable premises.
They have been delivered by the Partnership's own experienced
staff who can also refer people on to other professionals, services
and support for more in-depth advice.
The Partnership can also provide premises for business owners.
Last year it opened Castledine House on Heanor Road, Ilkeston,
where the office suites have now mostly been let and it also has an
industrial unit/workshop for lease at Manners Industrial Estate in
the town.
Partnership chief executive Ian Viles said: "We are delighted to
have helped all these businesses set up in these challenging
times.
"This has proved a boost to the local economy and diversified it
and in some cases helped people fulfil their dream of running their
own businesses."
The Partnership has launched a code of conduct for members,
encouraging them to consider other members when buying goods or
services.
"By purchasing good and services locally, businesses and other
organisations help to foster local prosperity and create employment
opportunities with money they would have spent anyway," says Ian
Viles.
"We believe that purchasing from local small and medium-sized
enterprises that offer good value for money can help to preserve
jobs and regenerate our local economy. There are also clear
Corporate Social Responsibility benefits, both social and
environmental, of buying locally."