Last updated at 11:57, Tuesday, 21 August 2012

BARROW must continue to lobby private companies to boost job opportunities, a council leader has said.

CALL: Barrow Borough Council leader, Councillor Dave Pidduck CHRIS WARNER

Leader of Barrow Borough Council, Councillor Dave Pidduck, has welcomed the potential jobs boost that Furness Enterprise’s £900,000 grant from the government and the recently published business vision could bring to the area.

However, he said that private industries must be attracted to the area to help bring more opportunities for growth.

He said: “Obviously investment in the borough, with the way the government’s thoughts are, is going to come from the private sector.

“We need to encourage them to come here and have a look. With Furness Enterprise getting the Coastal Communities grant this will help. We need to make sure that anything positive that happens is out there.

“Once that news is in the media then people will think, ‘What’s going on in Barrow in Furness and that area?’”

Councillor Pidduck said the council is working on ways to help boost schemes and the former Furness College lecturer said that apprenticeship schemes at BAE will continue to help offer opportunities to youngsters.

And he said that ensuring people can gain work is one of the major priorities for the area.

He said: “I call it ‘the dignity of work’. It is people going out to work, earning a wage and thinking how they are going to spend it and hopefully, that will be within the area which will support retail and so on.

“My granddaughter has just got a summer job at the zoo. A couple of weeks into it she got her first pay and went into town and bought what you would expect a teenager to buy, bits and pieces and make-up, and she was saying it was her money.

“She actually earned that money and for everybody there is that sort of good feeling that we have worked hard, earned money and can then go out and spend it.”

First published at 11:52, Tuesday, 21 August 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk