£4.3m Green Shoots Fund is a game-changer

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has given the green light to the University of Wolverhampton to create a bigger and even better version of the pioneering Green Shoots Fund.

The new fund – Green Shoots Plus - is three times the size of the original, which was launched in 2013 and has since helped to create 100 jobs.

The aim is to create 399 jobs in two years in the Black Country, Shropshire, Stafford and Herefordshire.

Since the fund launched in 2013, around 100 jobs have been created in the Black Country alone.

Now it will be expanded to cover Stafford, Shropshire and Herefordshire too.

One of the first businesses to receive backing was Brownhills-based Adams Enclosures. It received the then maximum award of £50,000, although the new project allows for as much as £150,000.

The funding enabled Adams to take on six staff, including three at a senior level.

The company, on Maybrook Industrial Estate, also bought new equipment including low voltage switchgear and controlgear assemblies.

In simple terms, it puts the company at the forefront of its market and means some of the various products it makes can be put to various uses.

Simon Banks, technical sales manager of the company, said: "The test panels have generated a lot of interest with our customers and we are receiving a lot of enquiries from new customers who are keen to offer their customers compliant solutions.

"The increase in enquiries and order input has meant that the business is recruiting new employees in sales, engineering and production to cope with the increased turnover."

The company started out in 2006 with just Wayne and Andria Adams and one other colleague. Now there are almost 40 staff.

Adams supplies the likes of Siemens and has also provided enclosures used on the London Underground.

The company makes high quality metal enclosures for controls and switchboards.

Last year the university, which already has campuses in Wolverhampton, Walsall and Telford, expanded by taking on Stafford's Shire Hall with the blessing of Staffordshire County Council.

Unemployment has dropped in the UK To a six year low.

But the West Midlands continues to have one of the highest rates of unemployment, despite big improvements.

In Staffordshire at the end of last year there were 5,076 unemployed people claiming Jobseekers' Allowance. In the Black Country it was as high as 24,998.

MPs from across the political divide joined with business leaders today to hail Green Shoots Plus as a major force for growth in the West Midlands.

Its original predecessor, which has so far handed out more than £1 million in the Black Country, was created after the university and the E&S agreed to team up and apply for funding which would then be handed out to small and medium sized businesses with plans to grow.

Dozens of small and medium-sized businesses have so far been successful. And there are still hundreds of thousands of pounds left to allocate before the new one begins.

The cash is being administered by the University of Wolverhampton's Business Solutions Centre with business leaders playing a key role in deciding which applications to support.

The University of Wolverhampton's Vice Chancellor Professor Geoff Layer, who joined Staffordshire's Councillor Ian PArry to announce the Shire Hall move last year, said it would make a significant difference to job creation.

He said: "The university is an economic anchor and agent of regeneration and growth, working with businesses, creating jobs and shaping the future of the regional economy.

"This is also about the importance of our reach throughout the Black Country, Telford, Staffordshire and Herefordshire."

Labour's Ian Austin, MP for Dudley North, played a key role in encouraging the E&S and the university to get involved and run a project from the RGF.

He said: "This is absolutely brilliant news and a huge credit to the Express & Star and the University of Wolverhampton.

"I couldn't have dreamt that this could have happened when I first suggested launching a jobs scheme like this.

"The Green Shoots programme has already created dozens of jobs, safeguarded many more and this new programme will enable hundreds more local people to get into work."

Wolverhampton South East MP Pat McFadden said: "I warmly welcome this extra funding.

"Anything that encourages investment and job creation in our area is welcome. We need an economic recovery that recognises all parts of the country."

Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West, Paul Uppal, added: "It is a real shot in the arm for local businesses. It sends out a message that if you are ambitious and you want to run a business in the West Midlands, there are people there that will help you to succeed.

"Nothing should be holding anyone back."

Ninder Johal, president of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce, said: "Small and medium enterprises are still concerned with a lack of access to finance.

"This is not helped by problems the banking sector suffered from. There's a squeeze at a public sector level too.

"This all adds to a sombre global market.

"But this exciting initiative is now a vehicle for SMEs and is not only engaged with accessing finance but propelling themselves to take advantage of an expanding economy in the UK.

"We're hoping that access to finance will add to the propensity to export and help to rebalance the UK economy." Phil Barnett, chairman of Wolverhampton Business Champions, said: "The West Midlands has always been somewhere that made its way in the world and created its own opportunities.

"That said, after the difficult times of the recession there remains the need for businesses that want to expand to be given the support to do so in terms of finance.

"I am delighted that the University of Wolverhampton, backed by newspapers like the Express & Star and Shropshire Star, is taking such a positive role at the forefront of driving economic growth.

"Despite the scarcity of public funding, there are still funds available to help businesses to grow.

"Often the most difficult things to have to navigate are the processes and procedures involved. Having the university help applicants to make the most of their bid is an essential part of the assistance and in some cases is as important as the money itself."

And Henry Carver, of Carvers Building Supplies said: "This can only be a good thing.

"When you have areas with such high unemployment there has to be an incentive and an encouragement to invest.

"The only way for the economy to get out of the mess that it has been in previously is through private sector investment. But it can be difficult to make that unless you have the assets to secure a loan or receive support another way in the beginning." The Green Shoots Fund has so far helped businesses with a wide range of projects.

West Bromwich-based Longwear Alloys was awarded £14,110 to create three jobs.

The foundry was originally commissioned to produce cast parts for the cement and quarrying industry.

It has now evolved to supply to the investment casting industry, which in turn supplies aerospace, surgical implant, power generation and numerous engineering companies.

It is using Green Shoots funding to join the export market.

To do that it needed new pieces of kit and some specialist industry training for staff.

Venture Pressings in Cradley Heath had got to its full capacity in the production of clips and seals. Its project, funded by Green Shoots, was to focus on band boards – the steel strips used as strengthening devices on scaffold boards.

Total Construction Supplies has been using its Green Shoots funding of £22,785 to work on a product it believes will be massive in the building industry.

The Wolverhampton company recently moved to larger premises on the Boundary Industrial Estate in Fordhouses where it is one of the UK's leading independent suppliers of steel and fabrication reinforcement for the construction industry.

A&T Enclosures in Dudley makes cabinets and consoles, bus bars and motor control centres at its site on Grazebrook Industrial Park. Its new project will increase the speed, accuracy and efficiency of production.

This will allow the company to manufacture a more diverse range of products and meet increasing demand.

But the fund has also helped those outside the manufacturing sector.

Removals company Burke Brothers and accountancy firm Bytheway and Co received a share.

Burke Brothers, based on Fox's Lane, created three jobs by its work to expand its self-storage with 94 new secure storage rooms of different sizes.

Bytheway and Co Accountants, in Sedgley, breathed new life into a previously empty building, taking on the former premises of an electrical company.

Businesses from the Black Country who were previously involved with Green Shoots and decisions on which applications to support will continue in the next round.

Professor Ian Oakes, deputy vice chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton, said: "We are delighted that things are coming to fruition again.

"Major investments such as Jaguar Land Rover on the i54 are fantastic and of huge benefit. What we have to do is help more companies, particularly smaller ones, to lead the way in the recovery."

For details visit http://www.wolverhamptonbsc.com/greenshoots