£1 million investment pool for SMEs in South West (November 2011)

Regional Growth Fund plays key part in creating spirit of entrepreneurship

Earlier this year the Western Morning News and Plymouth University began a partnership which succeeded in bidding for £1 million from the Regional Growth Fund to create an investment pool for small and medium-sized businesses in the region.

Business Secretary Vince Cable launched the Plymouth University and Western Morning News Growth Fund (PWGF) in July, saying it was the first RGF project to begin in the UK and at that time represented the best value for taxpayers' money.

The main aim of the fund is to award grants to SMEs in areas that are worst affected by public spending cuts.

However, an important theme of the PWGF is to create a spirit of entrepreneurship in the region – or, as Plymouth University Vice-Chancellor Wendy Purcell would describe it, "to be an example of enterprise in action".

In the House of Commons last month David Cameron said the project was a good example of what he describes as the Big Society, and we agree with this. The project has been a brilliant collaboration of individuals who work in the public, private and academic worlds, many of whom have undertaken this in their own time.

At the point we temporarily suspended the Fund to new applicants in August, we had received 144 Expressions of Interest, amounting to requests for £6.25 million of PWGF grant in relation to nearly £13 million worth of business development projects.

Applications for phase two opened last month, and by the end of the year we hope to have assisted around 30 SMEs and created more than 50 jobs.

Some companies which successfully bid for a phase one grant will be with us at the awards event tonight.

The Western Morning News would like to thank members of the PWGF steering group for their hard work and invaluable advice.

They are Wendy Purcell, Vice-Chancellor, Plymouth University; Eugene McCann, Plymouth senior partner, PwC; Carleen Kelemen, director, Partnership Office for Cornwall & Isles of Scilly ERDF and ESF Convergence Programmes; Tim Jones, chairman of the Heart of the South West LEP, the Devon Economic Partnership and the Devon and Cornwall Business Council; Stephen Pryor, Plymouth University governor and former director of corporate services at Business Link Devon & Cornwall, and Jim French, chairman and CEO of Flybe.

Members of the investment appraisal panel also deserve praise for their diligence and rigorous approach.

They are: Stephen Pryor, University of Plymouth governor and former director of corporate services, Business Link Devon & Cornwall; Tony Everett, of Everett-Mitchell; Simon Chamberlain, chief executive of Succession Advisory Services Ltd, chairman of the Tamar Science Park; Jeremy Filmer-Bennett, of the Devon and Cornwall Business Council; Frances Brennan, regional director, Working Links (and also representing the Heart of the South West LEP) and Chris Loughlin, chief executive, South West Water (and also representing the Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly LEP).