How Regional Growth Fund money helps businesses in England
Examples of how the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) has helped businesess in England and boost private-sector jobs.
How RGF helped a bidder directly to the RGF Fund
Nifco UK is a company, based in Stockton-on-Tees, that develops and manufactures plastic fasteners for industrial use. The RGF allocated them £3.57 million in 2 separate rounds that will see them create 295 jobs in total and 17 apprenticeships. The funding helped Nifco UK to persuade their Japan parent Nifco Inc to increase investment. As a result, they have built 2 advanced factories, and established a research and development centre in the UK.
Mike Matthews CEO of Nifco said:
With RDF support and investment from Nifco Inc - Nifco UK’s parent company - the project is expected to spur on significant growth for the business, securing and enhancing its position as a supplier to the automotive industry not only in the UK, but around the world.
We believe that, with the addition of the new facility, we can significantly increase sales revenue and have the facilities to support us in not only produce cutting edge products, but researching, developing and taking them to market. It’s a significant step for us, and one I know we will take full advantage of. As well as providing a major boost to our business, we will be bringing much needed new jobs to the area.
Joshua Appleyard, Apprentice Toolmaker at Nifco UK, named the Plastics Industry Awards Apprentice of the Year in 2013, said:
Being put forward for the award was a privilege, and winning the award was brilliant. Working at Nifco, a growing company with new state-of-the-art machinery and equipment has opened up many opportunities for me in terms of my technical training, and my future opportunities at Nifco look bright.
Joshua is now in his final year of apprenticeship. He is looking forward to progressing within Nifco UK as a qualified toolmaker.
How the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) helped a bidder to a regional programme
Greencroft Bottling Company (GBC), part of the Lanchester Wines Group of Companies, imports wine from all over the world. They operate from a ‘Class A’ bonded warehouse, which holds 3 advanced bottling lines capable of producing 25,000 bottles of wine per hour. They were able to install a fourth line through the £750,000 RGF support from the ‘Let’s Grow programme’. This has dramatically increased production, with the possibility to fill 12,000 bottles per hour. They have also erected new storage outside of the warehouse as well as a new mixing line, to be known as the Fusion Project.
The project is allowing wine importers around the world to bottle their product in the country of consumption rather than origin. This has stimulated the economy in the North East through:
- increased shipping traffic through ports
- increased transportation opportunities to local hauliers both inwards and outwards
- increased dry goods activity for local and national suppliers
The new bottling lines, operational as a result of RGF, have ensured an increase in production for the company. To date, it has created 74 full-time jobs and safeguarded a further 20 jobs. It’s forecast that it will have created 81 permanent private sector jobs by the end of 2014 to 2015. This is in an area that has a high density public sector employment and high unemployment claimant count.
Paul Baird, Group Accountant at GBC said:
RGF has ensured an improved position for Greencroft as one of the most modern and efficient bottlers and bonded warehouses in the country, which will assist employment within the North East.