This week, a team led by Invest in Bristol and Bath swapped the Bristol fog for the Cannes sunshine in the South of France for this year’s MIPIM property fair. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, it attracts thousands of attendees from across the globe eager to invest and attract investment.
Armed with news of the recent approval of the £91m arena funding, Bristol Mayor George Ferguson was amongst the delegation looking to promote the wealth of investment opportunities within the zone. Other future developments include:
– 2 Glass Wharf, a £35 million speculative office development
– Paintworks Phase III, which will double the current size of the popular office and studio space on Bath Road
– Electrification of the London to bristol railway line by 2017
– £21 million for highway infrastructure, cycling and pedestrian routes
– £11 million for superfast broadband
– £3 million investment in district heating plans.
Invest in Bristol & Bath held two headline events over the three-day conference- ‘Developing the region – the £1bn opportunity for Bristol and Bath’ and a discussion on Bristol’s status as European Green Capital 2015.
Colin Skellett, Chairman of the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), was feeling positive about the city region’s prospects of attracting investment. “We are getting through an enormous number of people, some more speculative, for example a meeting with the Bank of China which was looking more long term” he said.
“But some of these conversations with people who have got money to invest now. I would be very surprised if some of these conversations don’t lead to investment.”
Elsewhere, we rounded-up February’s news in our monthly newsletter, which you can view here. It included news on enterprise zone companies Rockpool Digital and Yurt Lush as well as detailing some upcoming events within Temple Quarter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here and we’re also on Twitter @BTQEZ, where we’ve just reached 1,200 followers!
