This year is proving to be a real challenge for both residents and local businesses as the cost of living crisis escalates, largely driven by the extreme energy price rises. Warrington & Co witnesses this frequently, with key employers reporting fuel prices trebling and our infrastructure projects experiencing raw material increases every few days. Nationally, this has created the unwelcome combination of a stagnating economy and high inflation.
Locally, however, Warrington is better shielded than many other locations, with a large logistics sector still benefitting from growing home deliveries and a nuclear cluster protected by 25 year government projects. The town centre was not as badly affected by the pandemic and there are several exciting new arrivals at Time Square and Golden Square – we’ll tell you more when we can. This is helped by an award winning Market and comprehensive cultural programme, including the recent and always popular Neighbourhood Weekender.
In previous updates you’ve heard about our success in securing funding such as the Town Deal and the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) and we continue to speak with Government about future spending. We have been allocated nearly £6.5m from the Shared Prosperity Fund and over £900,000 to improve adult literacy. Yes, it’s around a third less than we received from the European Union, however there are fewer restrictions on how we can spend it. Warrington has a strong reputation with Government for public and private partnerships and we’ll utilise this again to agree how best to invest the money.
It was great to return in person to our 24th Annual Property Review and if you missed it, the report can be downloaded from our website and the video viewed on our YouTube channel. The next big date for your diaries will be the Warrington Business Conference, pencilled in for the 16th September at Time Square. We received some excellent feedback last time and if you would like to be a sponsor for 2022, do get in touch.
Read our latest June 2022 newsletter here for more information and forthcoming events.