Boost given £6m for three more years

Boost, the business support service which has assisted more than 5,000 Lancashire businesses, has been granted £6m to keep the programme in operation until 2021.

 

Of  the new funding, £3.65m comes for the European Regional Development Fund, and the rest coming from Lancashire County Council, as well as the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP) Growth Deal.

Since its inception in July 2013, Boost has created over 2,200 new jobs and helped more than 600 new businesses get started, adding £74m of new economic activity to the Lancashire economy.

The additional round of funding will be used to support a further 1,450 businesses and create more than 1,350 new jobs, as well as helping to establish a further 200 business start-ups.

Edwin Booth, chair of LEP, said: “The LEP has always recognised that ambitious and innovative SMEs are the lifeblood of Lancashire’s thriving business community and the Boost programme continues to support them as they strive for growth.

“With challenges such as Brexit, and increasing competition from other UK regions and globally, small companies in particular can benefit massively from tapping into Boost’s resources."

As well as helping businesses find relevant support programmes, Boost runs four of its own: The Growth Support Programme delivered by Winning Pitch and Enterprise4All, Growth Mentoring delivered by Community & Business Partners and Orvia, Boost Bespoke, delivered by Winning Pitch, East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce and North and West Lancashire Chamber of Commerce, and Business Relationship Management which is delivered by Growth Lancashire.

As part of the procurement process, Freshfield has been appointed to manage the marketing of Boost.

Andrew Leeming, Boost programme manager at Lancashire County Council, said: “It’s wonderful news. We’ve been listening to businesses across the region to evolve the programmes and to understand what kind of support they need going forward. “It’s clear from the volume of Boost success stories we’ve had, that the business community truly benefits from our support. Securing this funding for is a vote of confidence for the region. We can’t wait to get started and create more growth conversations.”