Archive for February, 2010
Torbay Business Hub to create 1000 new jobs
February 25th, 2010
Residents and traders are being asked for their views on a £6.8m plan to create new, state of the art offices in Torquay to help attract investment into the Bay and hundreds of jobs.
Torbay Business Hub is part of the Castle Circus Regeneration Project, which aims to regenerate the town centre, bring council services under one roof and create major savings.
Torbay Council has now organised a public consultation event to display and explain plans to develop offices on part of the car park behind the Town Hall. Visitors will be asked for their feedback at the event, which will be held on Tuesday 2 March in Torquay Town Hall's Assembly Hall between 1pm and 6.30pm. Information will also be available on Torbay Council's website from Tuesday 23 February.
The council has approved the business case for the Castle Circus Regeneration Project and has already consulted on this proposal. The business case shows that by completing the project the council will save over £1 million a year. Feedback on the project as a whole has been mainly positive and this is another opportunity for residents to express their views, specifically on plans for new offices, before the planning application is submitted.
The Business Hub will create approximately 40,000 square feet of new office space and car parking. It aims to attract more businesses and inward investment to Torbay as well as create a 1000 new jobs. It is envisaged that the opportunities will be felt Bay-wide as associated businesses and suppliers feel the benefit of new, inward investment.
The project has been designed with flexibility in mind so that it will appeal to a variety of office users. A number of sustainable design features have been incorporated, including maximising the use of natural lighting; natural ventilation; solar collectors and a bio-mass boiler which utilises fuels from sustainable sources. If planning consent is granted, work could start later this year.
Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Councillor Chris Lewis, said:
There haven't been any major private sector initiatives in the town centre in the last 20 years and this project will act as a catalyst for further regeneration in the Bay. This is the time for us to invest in our economy and it is just one of many projects we are involved in to help our town centres. This project demonstrates our commitment to attracting businesses to Torbay and creating new opportunities for our residents.
We now want to consult with the public on the plans for Business Hub to enable residents and local businesses to influence the final project. We had a good response to previous consultations on the Castle Circus Regeneration project and I hope that that people come along to next month’s event to inspect the latest designs and make suggestions.
Source: Torbay Council
55,000 New Jobs Could be Created in 2010, Reveals New VAT Report
February 23rd, 2010
The report also reveals that a cut in VAT to five percent would contribute more than £1.4 billion to the UK economy in 2010 alone, rising to £17 billion by 2019. The report also predicts that an extra 81,500 jobs would also be created in the UK by the end of the decade.
The UK’s housing stock would also benefit from a cut in VAT, as the research showed that cutting VAT could result in an extra £450 million a year for the improvement of the UK’s social housing stock. This would be enough to renovate or bring back into use approximately 19,000 homes per year; by 2019 this could see up to 190,000 extra social homes back up to the Government’s Decent Homes Standards.
Cutting VAT to five percent would also mean a greener, more energy efficient housing stock. The Government’s current focus on zero carbon housing will not do enough to tackle the UK’s carbon emissions as it would take more than 130 years to completely replace the UK’s existing housing stock with new carbon-zero homes. The extra demand created by a cut in the VAT rate on housing repair, maintenance and improvement to five percent could generate around £1.23bn extra expenditure over the next decade on energy efficiency measures. This would equate to an extra 174,000 homes fully insulated and with energy efficient boilers between 2010 and 2019, leading to a saving of up to 337,000 tonnes of CO2.
Speaking at the launch of the research in the House of Commons, Lorely Burt MP for Solihull said:
The Liberal Democrats have long supported the Cut the VAT coalition’s call for VAT to be cut on repair, maintenance and home improvements and this research proves what benefits a VAT cut could have for the UK. We need to act quickly to get people back into work and a cut in VAT would provide many jobs immediately and would continue to provide a sustained flow of jobs over the next decade.
Richard Diment, Director General of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) said:
House building in the UK is at its lowest level since 1946 so building zero carbon homes will have a limited impact on the UK’s carbon emissions, especially considering the existing UK housing stock is responsible for 27 percent of total UK carbon emissions. A more effective way to reduce carbon emissions would be to ‘green’ the existing housing stock. Cutting VAT would mean that many more homeowners could afford to have their homes retrofitted which would also create savings for them on energy bills, leading to a reduction in fuel poverty.
RICS Director External Affairs Gillian Charlesworth said:
A reduced rate of VAT will help make energy efficiency improvements to homes cheaper and bring empty homes up to a habitable standard. Such reductions have had a positive impact in the Isle of Man and France by increasing construction activity and government revenue.
Source: Federation of Master Builders