Business News

With the Spring Budget due in just a few days’ time, rumours and predictions are circulating widely about what Chancellor Jeremy Hunt might include. One area attracting considerable interest is that of workers aged 50+.

Many older workers retired early during the pandemic, but there could be significant economic benefits from them returning to the labour force. Some have already done so, as part of the ‘great unretirement’.

Over four million families are set to save £45 a year on their energy bills from July as the Chancellor ends the prepayment premium.

Households on prepayment meters pay more on average compared to direct debit customers due to extra costs firms take on managing meters – such as supplying vouchers and collecting payments – being passed on to users.

Wincanton has announced that it will be opening the doors of its Stoke-on-Trent site to the public as part of Logistics UK’s Discover Logistics Careers weekend. Taking place at its Screwfix, Trentham Distribution Centre on Saturday 18th March from 10:00-14:00, the logistics firm is offering site tours around the distribution centre with management, a presentation about the site with a Q&A session to follow and refreshments. Site is also encouraging the local community to get involved in visiting the site to find out more about the diverse world of logistics.  

The Black British Business Awards (BBBAwards) are ringing in their 10th anniversary year. Since these prestigious awards were launched in 2014, they have recognised the outstanding achievements of inspirational Black professionals and entrepreneurs across Britain and all industries. 

Nominations have officially opened for the 10th anniversary BBBAwards ahead of the ceremony in October.

French engineering group Egis has moved its London employees into a new UK headquarters.

The new Egis UK headquarters is an 11,500 sq ft campus-style complex of three buildings up to five storeys in London Waterloo housing 350 employees working across its business lines from architecture to rail and energy. The buildings have been designed and developed to integrate within the surrounding Valentine Place conservation area.

Further support with council tax bills is being provided for those in greatest need after Birmingham City Council confirmed details of its discretionary support scheme for the 2023/24 financial year.

Birmingham was awarded £3.04million to support households in the forthcoming year, with an expectation from the Government that councils use the majority of their funding allocations to reduce bills for current working age and pension age Local Council Tax Support (LCTS) households by up to £25.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Editor of Street Cred Magazine, Mark Dwayne attended an Embracing Equity event at Metro Bank.

International Women's Day celebrates women's rights and inspires people to act in the ongoing fight for gender equality - this year’s IWD theme is Embrace Equity. 

City of Wolverhampton Council’s Heath Town regeneration scheme will later this month (March) complete the construction of the first new council homes on the estate since it was officially opened by HRH Princess Margaret in 1969.

It forms part of a major transformation of the estate, which has seen an extensive demolition programme of vacant buildings, existing residential blocks undergo major improvements by Wolverhampton Homes, and the creation of three new play areas and a football pitch.

Entrepreneur Kameese Davis was celebrating today after walking away with £3,000 in prize money and a package of bespoke business support to help her award-winning hair care products grow to new lengths. An audience of more than 500 entrepreneurs, innovators and investors at the Venturefest WM 2023 festival of innovation in Birmingham on Wednesday March 1 voted Kameese the winner of this year’s Minerva Birmingham Pitch Up competition, which traditionally closes the annual festival.

Residents at a housing estate in Tottenham, in London, have demanded that their local council carry out “urgent safety and maintenance works” following a fire that broke out at a tower block on 17 February 2023.

Emergency services were able to successfully extinguish the flat fire at Northumberland Park, which had been caused by the “unsafe use of incense sticks” – the London Fire Brigade sent eight fire appliances and 60 firefighters to tackle the blaze.

In anticipation of the energy price cap increase in April 2023 to over £3,700, the National Homebuilding & Renovating Show (23-26 March 2023, NEC, Birmingham) is putting energy-saving solutions centre stage.  The biggest ever line-up of housing experts under one roof will be responding to visitors’ concerns and questions about how they can future proof their homes to improve energy efficiency and create energy sources to help them reduce rising fuel costs. 

Jamaica is set to receive a total of US$1.7 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as approved last week.

The Executive Board of the IMF gave the go ahead for this approved funding under its Precautionary and Liquidity Line (PLL) and Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).

 “It’s official, the four-day week trial in the UK has been hailed a success, both for businesses and employees and it’s now on track to be continued by the majority of organisations and trialled even further”, said Lord Mark Price, Founder of WorkL, former Trade Minister and former Managing Director of Waitrose.

The UK has slipped to number 25 out of 51 countries on the quality of entrepreneurship ecosystem economies - according to the new Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) National Entrepreneurship Context Index (NECI) released today.

The ranking, reported in the ‘GEM 2022/2023 Global Report - Adapting to a New Normal’, is a fall from 18th last year, with the index score decreasing from 4.9 (in 2021) to 4.7.

A new West Midlands Metro tram has been named after Roy and Don Richardson. The twin entrepreneurs and philanthropists established a West Midlands business that now invests in real estate and growth capital around the world.

Their development activity, which famously included the Merry Hill Shopping Centre and Star City in Birmingham, has created tens of thousands of jobs in the region over many years.

A new and closer relationship between the UK and Germany was expected to be a core theme of Economic Secretary Andrew Griffith’s visit to Berlin yesterday. 

As part of the long-planned visit, the Minister hosted a breakfast roundtable with German financial services and banking chief executives.