Shropshire Star's Green Shoots Plus campaign ends after generating 396 jobs

Sixty-five businesses across Shropshire, the Black Country, Staffordshire and Herefordshire received grants of up to £150,000 through Green Shoots Plus for projects to help them grow.

Innovative inflatables specialist Lindstrand Technologies was among the beneficiaries of the Green Shoots Plus fund.

The renowned Oswestry-based manufacturer used a £150,000 grant to help it build a new hot air balloon factory beside its current site with the aim of creating 15 new roles. It helped reinvigorate hot air balloon-making in the UK, led by industry pioneer Per Lindstrand.

In total around £4.1m was awarded, creating 396 jobs and protecting 192 others, while generating £13.2 million in private sector investment into the regional economy.

The funding was provided by the Government’s Regional Growth Fund and distributed through the Shropshire Star and its sister paper the Express & Star, the University of Wolverhampton and a panel of business experts.

The panel met at the University's Telford campus on Wednesday to formally complete the project, which began in 2015.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton Professor Ian Oakes said: “Green Shoots Plus has created an impressive number of new jobs in smaller companies which could not otherwise access funding.

"It has made a positive impact on the region and in many cases has been a catalyst for the businesses which made successful bids to go on and generate further investment.

"Having a guaranteed income through employment is a major change for many people's lives so it is great that we have been able to create 396 jobs. We have been able to transform people's lives."

The university will continue to support the grant recipients. It is also looking at ways of promoting the project as a case study for public-private partnerships.

In the final tally, just over £1m went to 18 companies in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin, £2.8m went to 41 Black Country firms, with £240,000 going to five Hereford businesses and a further £58,000 invested in precision engineering company Link Business, the only beneficiary in South Staffordshire.

More than 200 businesses applied for funding through the scheme. They had to meet set criteria before their projects could progress to the decision panel stage.

The grants covered up to 30 per cent of an overall project cost and were worth between £10,000 and £150,000. Green Shoots Plus is a bigger and wider-ranging successor to the pioneering Green Shoots Fund, which has distributed more than £1m in grants to 35 businesses across the Black Country. The original fund created 129 jobs and safeguarded a further 74.

TCL Packaging in Telford was among the first businesses to have benefited as it scooped a grant of more than £50,000 towards a £180,000 project to limit solvent emissions from its factory on Stafford Park.

Another beneficiary was The 3D Measurement Company in Worfield, which received a £33,000 grant to help install a temperature-controlled automated measuring cell to allow it to expand.

The fund was aimed at businesses working in advanced manufacturing, building technologies, transport technologies, including aerospace, environmental technologies or business to business services, such as accountancy, design and print, electrical, advertising or marketing.

Applicants needed to have been turned down by their banks for the required funding and not to have had more than £175,000 in public funding in the past three years. Chris Leggett, marketing and communications director for Express & Star and Shropshire Star publisher the Midland News Association, was on the decision-making panel.

He said: “Green Shoots has been a true partnership between the university, representatives of the private sector and the MNA as leading local publisher. Our unrivalled reach within the region has allowed Green Shoots to reach senior managers in small companies who would not otherwise have got involved with a government grants programme.”