By STUART KLOSINSKI, Industrial development manager for Furness Enterprise

Published at 11:03, Wednesday, 18 July 2012

WITHIN Furness, there are some great service sector success stories; bodies like Furness Building Society, which delivers an important role in stimulating the housing market.

PUTTING FURNESS FIRST: Stuart Klosinski, industrial development manager at the Furness Enterprise

Organisations like Steele’s Removals, through their diversification, have built up a portfolio of capabilities, the latest being self-drive van hire/storage to complement their international removals, on-site secure storage and domestic removals.

Bookers Cash and Carry, Premier Tiles, Furness College’s new £4.2m campus and the Trinity Enterprise Centre are further examples of facilities and business services located on the coast.

In fact, throughout Furness we are fortunate that the majority of our businesses and manufacturing commercial strength is situated directly along our coastline.

Sites for new development are also located there too, together with the combined Furness College/ University of Cumbria campus.

For many years, therefore, there has been a consistent focus, concentrating investment at the coast to benefit all of Furness and South Cumbria, and today we see the majority of jobs taken up by residents located along Park Road, at BAE Systems, in the docks, off Rampside Road, at GSK in Ulverston and at Oxley, in fact, within a mile of the coast.

Last week in London, ministers addressed a seminar on the future of coastal towns.

Mark Prisk, minister for business and enterprise, made it clear coastal towns may have been overlooked in the past. He urged local enterprise partnerships to think about how they can help such areas, now and in the future. The minister said coastal towns need to realise their potential from within. Communities secretary Eric Pickles said coastal resorts were a vital part of the UK economy.

We are members of the national Coastal Communities Alliance Board. They met last week. Emerging from that meeting was a desire led by ourselves, Lincolnshire, Torbay, Great Yarmouth and Cornwall to champion the role of manufacturing and high technology service strengths of coastal towns and to persuade local enterprise partnerships nationally and the government to give higher priority to such towns.

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