North Somerset Breakfast 2021 | Newsco Insider Limited | 12 October 2021 | Winter Gardens, Royal Parade, Weston-super-Mare BS23 1AJ, UK

North Somerset is a business success story, with an economy worth £4.1bn. It is home to over 8,000 businesses, according to data from the Office for National Statistics, and the number of active enterprises has expanded by 10.2 per cent since 2009, which is higher than the average growth rate in England.

Further opportunities are emerging. North Somerset Council has submitted a £15m bid to the Government’s £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund to turn the Tropicana in Weston-super-Mare into an 8,000 seat arena, and to help deliver the second phase of the town’s Sovereign Centre, and to support restoration of Birnbeck Pier.

Meanwhile, the 72 hectare Junction 21 Enterprise Area on the M5 corridor is continuing to develop as a strategic mixed-used location, which will provide over 2 million square feet of commercial space, 10,000 jobs and 6,000 new homes by 2026, and part of the £1bn expansion and regeneration of Weston.

Making the most of these opportunities, and others, will be discussed at the North Somerset Business Breakfast event, by business leaders, key stakeholders and experts from the region brought together by Insider for a question and answer-style event. The debate will also examine the challenges currently facing North Somerset, as the way in which people live and work evolves in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Does the area have the required skillset to capitalise upon opportunities in the post-pandemic economy, and how can businesses access the • breadth of training and educational opportunities available?
• What should be done to tackle the problem of digital poverty that has been brought into the spotlight by the pandemic?
• What projects and programmes can help to stimulate growth, investment and higher productivity in North Somerset?
• What next for Bristol Airport, which later this year will discover the outcome of its appeal against refusal of its plans for a £120m expansion?

2021 Speaker

PANELLISTS:

Claire Arbery
Director of the West of England Institute of Technology

Mark Canniford
Executive Member for Placemaking and Economy, North Somerset Council

Jez Alman
Head of Sales, Truespeed

2021 Sponsors

• North Somerset Council
• Truespeed
• Welstom College
• AG