At Tuesday’s Ventnor Business Association meeting (more to come on this later), Ventnor town councillor, Debby Robinson, shared the local council’s plans to start tackling deprivation in the town.
She explained that with the help of a grant from the Isle of Wight council’s Economic Improvement Fund, a brand new role for an Economic Development Officer was planned.
Welcomed by Business Association
News of the role resulted in great excitement around the table and the idea was fully supported by the Business Association who could clearly see the benefits to the economic future of the town.
Poor economic link?
It will be disappointing for many to read today that Ventnor’s application to the council has been rejected.
The Ventnor Town council were told by the IWC, “I am afraid that even with the additional supporting information the Panel cannot approve your bid as it does not provide any clear or real outcomes that benefit the economy of the area.”
They go on to suggest that the VTC submit a bid for another project instead.
Did officers read the outcomes?
Having read through the documentation (embedded below for your convenience), specifically the long list of outcomes of clear economic benefit, some people are struggling to see how the IWC could have reached their conclusion.
Below are the outcomes listed by the VTC in their detailed application. Admittedly, some sound like the outcome of someone swallowing the encyclopaedia of management speak, but there several outcomes with clear economic benefit.
- a routine collection and collation regime for locally relevant data across the critical areas of employment, business, town centre development and tourism;
- baseline statistics for each data category;
- an agreed set of indicators supported by the data regime enabling trend monitoring;
- engagement with the Isle of Wight Council’s apprenticeship programme resulting in the placement of three new posts in the town.
- the creation of at least 10 new jobs within the areas of the town’s economy identified above;
- identification of ownership of town centre properties and opening discussions with them;
- sustainable sponsor and support structures for the local economy including business development, town centre improvement and tourism support;
- a marketing strategy developed with and shared by local stakeholders; and
- if funding becomes available, perhaps through the re-allocation of Economic Improvement Fund grants not taken up by others, a professionally developed rebranding for the Town and related corporate identity manual.
The council has been given two weeks to submit a bid for an alternative project. They are entitled to bid for £12,477.
