AS the country starts to recover from the pandemic and the effects it has had on the economy, I would like to start by celebrating some great news for the county.

It was fantastic to see Worcester and Redditch were successful in their bids as part of the Government’s Towns Fund.

A combined £35m will be invested into Worcestershire to help strengthen and enhance these two great areas.

For those interested in finding out more about this success and the bids by each district, visit the Worcestershire LEP website.

Following this great news, I would like to remind businesses that no matter the size of your business or organisation, there is support available.

Our colleagues at the Worcestershire Business Central Growth Hub offer support and guidance to get businesses involved in programmes and schemes that can help with funding, relocating, overcoming challenges, recruiting and more.

All this support is free to businesses and will enable them to recover and thrive.

Recent examples of the support the Growth Hub has been able to offer would be with Peer Networks and Specialist Business Advisers.

Back at the start of year, the Growth Hub team ran both of these programmes and they were met with huge interest by the local business community which translated into successful delivery with over 160 businesses supported across both of the free programmes.

I am pleased to say that the team have now opened expressions of interest for the next phase of both the Peer Networks ( business-central.co.uk/peer-networks/) and Specialist Business Advisers (business-central.co.uk/business-advisers/ ) programmes.

I would strongly implore local businesses to consider these programmes as they are hugely beneficial for businesses.

You can speak with the team about Peer Networks, Specialist Business Advisers or any other of the support programmes available by getting in touch today: https://www.business-central.co.uk/contact-us