Shrewsbury bids to become UK Capital of Enterprise
GREAT NEWS FOR SHREWSBURY!

The search is on to find the most enterprising town, city or place in Britain! And Shrewsbury is about to enter the race.

This follows the launch of the first Enterprising Britain Competition by Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer in June. The competition will recognise and celebrate entrepreneurial achievement throughout the regions of the UK and aims to encourage more people to consider becoming their own boss.

The Enterprising Britain Competition is a high-profile search to identify a leading location that is transforming its own economic future by encouraging residents and incomers to start up new companies and is creating fertile conditions for business growth.

This competition provides Shrewsbury with a great opportunity to shout about the town’s success in stimulating its own entrepreneurial economy – from the councils’ own commercial approaches to local government to the thriving community of entrepreneurs from a broad range of industry sectors. Shrewsbury is also making great efforts to ensure that its next generation of entrepreneurs is supported through close working relationships between the public, private and academic sectors.

The modern economy that is being encouraged in Shrewsbury centres around small and medium sized companies, mostly owner-operated and profoundly entrepreneurial. The town currently records highest regional growth rates in technology and creative industries and these new businesses are being increasingly drawn to an area that offers a beautiful setting, high quality of life and commercially attractive business locations. Other themes highlighted in the Shrewsbury submission will include the growing strength of the environmental technology sector in town as well as the dramatic increase in the number of people starting their businesses from home, improving their own work/life balance while building successful businesses.

Shrewsbury’s entry is being written by a partnership of Shrewsbury Town Centre Management, Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council and Shropshire County Council. And although written by these organisations, the outstanding theme of the Shrewsbury bid is that it will be supported by a newly formed group of successful Shrewsbury entrepreneurs. This serious involvement in the competition entry by local entrepreneurs will set Shrewsbury’s entry apart from all the rest. This new group of entrepreneurs will be known as ‘Shropshire Enterprise Champions’ and will be putting their weight behind Shrewsbury’s submission to be recognised as the vibrant and enterprising town that it surely is.

The Chairman of Shrewsbury Town Centre Management Partnership, John Clayton, said:

"This is a major opportunity for Shrewsbury to showcase the town as not only a great place to live and visit, but as an outstanding business location. The work to enter Shrewsbury into this national competition will also promote further entrepreneurship and help build the town’s profile."

"We relish the challenge to highlight Shrewsbury as a town where business aspirations are at their highest and we look forward to the process of entering this competition bringing recognition from across the region as to Shrewsbury’s unique advantages as a fine business location."