January 2020 - Invest Colchester

‘Made in Britain’: Wilkins of Tiptree on TV

Posted on January 30, 2020 | by web@colchester.gov.uk

A fascinating insight into British industry showing the intricacies of making simple and fantastic products. “Made in Britain” shown on ITV Four last November selected a diverse group of products: The programme featured Wilkins Tiptree jam, safety razors, mattresses and clocks a real insight into the expertise and commitment that goes into making these products. The TV crew filmed at Tiptree in mid summer when the strawberries were at their peak and ready to be made into Strawberry Conserve.

Image credit: Wilkins, Tiptree

London Stansted Airport Launches New Flights to India’s Economic Capital, Mumbai

Posted on January 29, 2020 | by web@colchester.gov.uk

Air India has announced that it is to launch direct flights from London Stansted to Mumbai from February 21 using state-of-the-art Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The route is a Stansted first and comes just three months after the airline launched its inaugural Amritsar service from the airport. The news has been welcomed by business leaders and tourism chiefs who say the new link will generate significant trade and tourism opportunities. It will also benefit the 200,000 people from Stansted’s catchment area who currently travel to Mumbai each year from other UK airports.

Picture credit: Air India

Further Major Lettings at Colchester’s Northern Gateway

Posted on January 28, 2020 | by web@colchester.gov.uk

Turnstone Estates has agreed two further major pre-lets at its Northern Gateway leisure development in Colchester, following a deal with Hollywood Bowl Group to operate a bowling and indoor mini-golf centre.

Hollywood Bowl Group, has signed 25 year leases on two units totalling just under 50,000sq ft. It will operate ground floor unit L4 (25,000 sq ft) as a bowling centre for its Hollywood Bowl brand and first floor unit L1 (24,000 sq ft) for its new Putt Stars mini-golf brand. Turnstone has a development agreement with landowner Colchester Borough Council for development of the 10-acre site, which will be anchored by a 12-screen cinema with Superscreen and 4DX, operated by Cineworld.

Other leisure pre-lets have been signed with Travelodge and Jump Street for a climbing centre. Work is expected to start on site in early 2021, with completion scheduled for mid 2022.

Image credit: Hollywood Bowl

cropped 003 planned innovation centre cgi copyright University of Essex

Colchester’s Innovation Centre is filling fast – Neil Griffin, Innovation Director, Oxford Innovation shares why

Posted on January 13, 2020 | by web@colchester.gov.uk

The Innovation Centre on the Knowledge Gateway at the University of Essex opened back in April. We caught up with the Centre’s Director to find out how things are going in the tech world he’s creating there.

Having been open just over 5 months we are excited to have 16 Technology businesses within the Innovation Centre already, ranging from Insuratech, Digital performance marketing, Cybersecurity and Software providers to name just a handful.

In just these few short months we have already seen 4 companies scale up into bigger offices as they are seeing the benefit of scale up support due to the location, collaboration with others in centre, access to the University through such things as Interns as well as the business support that the Oxford Innovations team is providing.

We have held 27 events since June ranging from regular Meet ups, Tech + Toast (Tech East) The Informed Entrepreneur (Relocon) and The Essex Cloud (Innovative Creations) to Innovate UK loans briefings, Tapping into the University talent pool, Google Digital Garage and computer games launches.

Part of my role is to arrange business masterclasses which are wrapped up in the services we provide, these tend to be more specialist to have real impact in a business. These have included Investment readiness and Brand workshops, Generating sales through social media plus sessions such as Mindspan.

We have had the pleasure of engaging with over 1000 attendees over the course of all our events and the feedback has been excellent with businesses gaining knowledge plus taking away things that can have a positive impact on their business. We have even more interesting sessions planned in for 2020 so keep an eye on the website.

My main role is to help scale these businesses and be that sounding board for advice in all aspects of business development to make an impact, strive for results but above all grow the businesses sustainably. By being part of the wider Colchester business ecosystem we want innovators to engage with us and keep talent within Essex, as I believe we can make a difference.

In my view why spend your time trekking to London or sitting in a coffee shop locally when you can come and engage with us in an amazing building like this, there is such a good feel and buzz about the place.

Back to blog