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Monday 2 September 2013

Economy Growth and Start Up Confidence

 
Many commentators and business organisations are acknowledging that the UK economy is slowing picking up; given the stagnation over recent years this is good news and we can only hope it is sustained. I suppose the only concern is that it’s not a rebalanced economy that is driving growth but a pick up in consumer spending and a stronger housing market.

If the numbers of business start up enquiries received by BIP is any indication there is a lot of confidence in people starting up. Yes many of these are becoming self employed because they cannot find employment but leaving these aside the numbers of start ups are growing.

There is a lot of support available to prospective entrepreneurs; New Enterprise Allowance for Job Centre Plus customers, a soon to be extended Start up Loan finance package, targeted support for women (and men!) under the Rural Growth network as well as various courses on enterprise and BIP's own support in some areas.

One of the challenges when running a business for the first time is the isolation that some people can suffer particularly when things are not going quite to plan; at times like these you need to talk to someone, it could be a BIP advisor or another business person. We have recently opened the Okehampton Work Hub which can offer people a desk, computer, scanning and printing facilities, free coffee and wi-fi. It also gives you the opportunity to talk to others in business or a BIP advisor. Why not try it, you can have the first session free and after that it’s very reasonably priced.

As a footnote I have just joined Twitter (@StewartHorne3). I am hoping my contribution there will be a little more frequent than my blogs, not sure how it will go but I will give it a try and hopefully won't bore my followers too much!

Stewart Horne