{"id":53848,"date":"2015-02-12T17:20:47","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T17:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=dd296e9d0ca1faa37d014d22f8abc11e"},"modified":"2015-02-12T17:20:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T17:20:47","slug":"press-release-minister-announces-6-million-boost-for-solent-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=53848","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Minister announces \u00a36 million boost for Solent economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<ul>\n<li>Minister for Portsmouth confirms \u00a32 million funding for Gosport aviation firm<\/li>\n<li>new \u00a34 million skills package builds on Solent \u00a3150 million Growth Deal<\/li>\n<li>\n<abbr title=\"Her Royal Highness\">HRH<\/abbr> Duchess of Cambridge visits Ben Ainslie Racing in Portsmouth<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Vector Aerospace, a world leading Gosport-based business in aerospace maintenance, has today (12 February 2015) had confirmation that its bid for Regional Growth Fund (<abbr title=\"Regional Growth Fund\">RGF<\/abbr>) cash is being taken forward. Subject to due diligence, this will enable Vector Aerospace to enhance the design and aviation services capability at its Fleetlands site in Gosport. The firm is aiming to diversify its customer base to include more civil customers and take on more skilled workers as it grows.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is being delivered by Matthew Hancock, the Minister for Portsmouth, on a visit to the firm today. He is also attending the reception with <abbr title=\"Her Royal Highness\">HRH<\/abbr> the Duchess of Cambridge at the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth being held today by Ben Ainslie Racing (<abbr title=\"Ben Ainslie Racing\">BAR<\/abbr>).<\/p>\n<p>The government has also today confirmed a new \u00a34.36 million package of joint government and industry funding to improve skills for the <abbr title=\"National Health Service\">NHS<\/abbr>\u2019 600,000 support workers, which will establish a new national infrastructure for skills provision. University Hospital Southampton <abbr title=\"National Health Service\">NHS<\/abbr> Foundation Trust and its partners are leading the project<\/p>\n<p>Minister for Portsmouth Matthew Hancock said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This is set to be a momentous year for Portsmouth and the whole Solent region. We worked hard to make sure Ben Ainslie Racing could find a home here, and hopefully Sir Ben can harness the fantastic marine engineering skills in the area to enjoy success in the America\u2019s Cup World Series races this June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">There\u2019s great potential in the Solent region which is why we\u2019ve committed over \u00a3150 million through the Growth Deal, we\u2019re investing over \u00a34 million today into a new <abbr title=\"National Health Service\">NHS<\/abbr> skills pilot based at Southampton, and also providing a further boost with funding for Vector Aerospace who are aiming to expand into new markets and create high-skilled jobs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Michael Tyrrell, Vector Aerospace UK Managing Director, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">We are now in a position to progress our expansion programme for Design Services. This is excellent news, not just for our operation here but also the region, as Vector Aerospace is the largest engineering employer in Gosport. It will also help to strengthen the region\u2019s aerospace skill base as it seeks to reduce its dependency on military work.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><abbr title=\"Her Royal Highness\">HRH<\/abbr> the Duchess of Cambridge is visiting Portsmouth today to see first-hand the progress being made on construction of the new <abbr title=\"Ben Ainslie Racing\">BAR<\/abbr> headquarters and visitor centre.<\/p>\n<p>The <abbr title=\"Regional Growth Fund\">RGF<\/abbr> was launched in 2010 and has now invested \u00a32.85 billion in regional companies, helping them to expand and take on more staff. Vector Aerospace is one of 63 new projects and programmes benefitting from today\u2019s sixth round of <abbr title=\"Regional Growth Fund\">RGF<\/abbr> funding which has seen \u00a3300 million awarded to firms across the country.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"notes-to-editors\">Notes to Editors<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li>Vector Aerospace is a global provider of aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul (<abbr title=\"maintenance, repair and overhaul\">MRO<\/abbr>) services. Through facilities in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, South Africa and Kenya, Vector Aerospace provides services to commercial and military customers for gas turbine engines, components and helicopter airframes. Vector\u2019s customer-focused team includes over 2,700 motivated employees.<\/li>\n<li>Vector Aerospace intends to use <abbr title=\"Regional Growth Fund\">RGF<\/abbr> money to compete more effectively and more quickly for a bigger piece of the global aerospace modification and upgrade market. This is an important element of the company\u2019s strategy to transform the business from a predominantly <abbr title=\"Ministry of Defence\">MoD<\/abbr> customer base to a more balanced military and civil portfolio, offering new services to new customers. This will sustain and create skilled jobs, as well as adding value to the wider supply chain, at a time when the Solent area has suffered an economic downturn. <\/li>\n<li>In total, \u00a32.85 billion has now been invested in regional companies through the Regional Growth Fund, helping them to expand and take on more staff. For every \u00a31 the government has invested through the Regional Growth Fund, the private sector has put in \u00a35.50, meaning the total investment is now expected to attract \u00a316 billion of private sector support. Over 100,000 jobs have already been created with a further 480,000 expected by the mid-2020s.<\/li>\n<li>Businesses across all industrial sectors benefit from the funding, with over \u00a31.1 billion being invested in manufacturing, including \u00a3364 million in automotive, \u00a3100 million in aerospace and \u00a3104 million for low carbon enterprises.<\/li>\n<li>Today, the <abbr title=\"Regional Growth Fund\">RGF<\/abbr> is backing British-based business by awarding 63 new projects and programmes across England with a further \u00a3297 million. The investment from the <abbr title=\"Regional Growth Fund\">RGF<\/abbr> will fuel business expansion and is expected to unlock \u00a31.5 billion of additional private sector investment and create or safeguard thousands of jobs.<\/li>\n<li>The Employer Ownership Pilot (<abbr title=\"Employer Ownership Pilot\">EOP<\/abbr>) is a \u00a3340 million competitive fund that invited employers, over 2 rounds, to tell government how they would better use public investment, alongside their own, to invest in the skills of their current and future workforce in order to grow our economy.<\/li>\n<li>The project is for England and is jointly funded by the Department for Business, Innovation &amp; Skills (BIS) and the Department for Education (DfE), and is administered by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA). The project was developed in conjunction with the UK Commission for Employment &amp; Skills (UKCES).<\/li>\n<li>University Hospital Southampton <abbr title=\"National Health Service\">NHS<\/abbr> Foundation Trust is one of the largest acute teaching trusts in England, with an annual spend of \u00a3572 million at 3 sites across the city of Southampton. It provides hospital services for 1.9 million people living in Southampton and southern Hampshire and specialist services including neurosciences, respiratory medicine, cancer, cardiovascular, obstetrics and specialist children\u2019s services to more than 3.7 million people in central southern England and the Channel Islands.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minister for Portsmouth confirms \u00a32 million funding for Gosport aviation firm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53848"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}