Economic development across the district

Melanie Burgoyne is the economic development manager for Chichester District Council.

The role sees her helping businesses in the area with queries and training, making it clear what the district has to offer and encouraging new business to move into the area.

Speaking to the Observer about what makes the city and district tick, she said: “[Chichester district] is a great place to do business. That is something we have found.

“The majority of my clothes are from Chichester, I get my food here, I get my hair done here — there’s a good range.

“I find it an easy city to walk around and then you can take a breather in a park.”

The department is committed to supporting businesses of all sizes, from offering training programmes and enabling grants to help owners take their business to the next step.

Melanie said: “We are here to serve the business community of the whole district and the main focus of that is what we call our business contact programme.

“We have an economic development officer and another one starting in August.”

The officers work on an ‘out-and-about’ basis, where they check in with businesses they are passing, or are approached by businesses.

“[Officers check] what their plans are, have they got plans for growth, how are they finding business in the district.

“That is always useful information to be able to feed back in for when people want information about what is happening in the district.”

The meetings also allow the team to find out what business support can be offered.

“This largely gets taken up by the SMES (small and medium enterprises) and most businesses in the district fall into the small category, and within that, 90 per cent of our businesses are microbusiness, so less than ten employees.”

“The question we get asked the most is about funding. We do have our own council funding stream for businesses which is called the enabling grant scheme where small businesses can get up to £2,500 towards projects that improve their business, whether it’s for equipment or improving a website. It’s really meant as a kick start piece of funding. We are keen to know how it is affecting their businesses.”

The department also faces a number of misconceptions about the powers it has to help businesses.

Rents and business rates are not something it has control of across the city. It can’t choose which businesses move into the area either.

The team does, however, support businesses with planning applications and points them in the direction on necessary support to help them grow.

For more information on how the district council can help your business and to find out more about grants and training programmes, visit: www.chichester.gov.uk/ businesssupportandadvice Melanie Burgoyne, economic development manager, Anna Haywardstrange, economic development support officer, Karen Neglia, economic development officer, Derek Irvine, economic development officer