A recruitment drive has begun to find four volunteer business advisers who will share their experience and enthusiasm with Chesterfield and Derbyshire pupils to help them succeed in a national competition.

Run by the UK’s largest enterprise and education charity, the Young Enterprise Company Programme challenges students aged 15-19 to set up a business for an academic year while developing transferable employability skills that would be an asset to future employers.

This year’s local Young Enterprise Area Final will take place at the Winding Wheel in Chesterfield in March with the winning company going on to the Derbyshire County event in April. Winners here progress to the national HSBC Young Enterprise Innovation Awards in London to battle it out to become the UK’s Young Enterprise Company of the Year.

Hazel James, a recruitment and training officer at Rykneld Homes has been volunteering as a business adviser since 2008. Sharing her enthusiasm for the role and encouraging others to join, Hazel said:-

“I remember my first meeting well. I struggled to see this room full of sixth formers ever being able to pull themselves together and build a business from nothing! At first I couldn’t understand my role in the room but in time developed a style that has worked for both of us.

“I had to resist the temptation to jump in too early and take over when things went wrong or looked like they were going wrong. It’s all about learning by doing, and there is no better way to learn than from mistakes (because you won’t make the same ones again!). The company does not have to be successful to be a great learning experience – business/work failure is going to happen at some point in everyone’s life (even the likes of Sir Richard Branson) so it might as well be in the safe environment of Young Enterprise.

“Being a business adviser is an incredibly rewarding and exciting experience both for yourself and for the local community. You make a real difference to the lives and potential of young people in their area by helping them to understand the world of business and to prepare them for their working lives.”

Vice Chair of the Young Enterprise North Derbyshire Area Board, Steve Taylor comments:-

“We all have a responsibility to support young people in making the transition from school to the workplace and I am looking forward to expanding our current business adviser team this year.

With no qualifications or business start-up experience required, this is a great opportunity for anyone seeking to get involved with the local community and work with and inspire young people, at the same time as developing their own skills and broaden their knowledge.”

Business advisers are asked to commit to an initial one hour per week for the first month of the project and then one hour per fortnight, with most activity during the autumn and spring terms.

There is also comprehensive support for the advisers and students and there is a detailed handbook as well as access to the Company Programme website.

Anyone interesting in becoming a Young Enterprise Business Adviser should contact Steve Taylor at Start Financial Planning on 01246 268527 or email steve@startfp.co.uk.

Local leaders from the public and private sector have secured a £30 million cash boost for Sheffield City Region (which includes Chesterfield). This is in addition to £320m secured from Government last year, which will help the Local Enterprise Partnership to deliver its vision of creating 70,000 jobs over the next decade.

This top-up from Government makes Sheffield City Region’s total Growth Deal the fifth most substantial deal made with any City Region in England.

This extra funding will:

Enable the LEP to extend its highly successful business investment and support programme and create 4,400 new jobs for local people
Support a programme of investment in sustainable transport projects which could include cycle lanes, bus lanes, tram rail line replacement and other measures to make it easier and cheaper for people to get to work
Be invested in ready-to-go sites to help meet unmet demand from businesses wanting to set up quickly on Sheffield City Region Enterprise Zone
Support infrastructure work on the Midland Mainline which will mean faster journey times from Sheffield and Chesterfield to London.
Go towards building new training facilities, including plans for a Rail Engineering Campus in Doncaster
Councillor Sir Stephen Houghton CBE, Chairman of the Sheffield City Region Combined Authority, said:

“This Deal marks another milestone on our ‘devolution journey’ and builds on our recent Devolution Deal which transferred additional powers and policy levers from Government to our City Region’s decision makers.

“The Deal will need to be approved by Government after the General Election in May but we’re confident that this investment will be considered important by ministers of any political party as it is based on what our economy needs to grow.

James Newman, Chairman of the Sheffield City Region LEP, said:

“This is another step forward in ensuring that our City Region has the powers and funding that we need to grow our economy by growing local businesses and creating good jobs for local people.

“This important deal is the result of the excellent local partnerships in place across our City Region, particularly between the private sector led LEP Board and the Combined Authority. These strong local partnerships bring together local leaders from local government and from the private sector to make more effective local economic decisions.”

Government and D2N2 – the Local Enterprise Partnership for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire – today agreed an additional investment package to further accelerate economic growth locally.

This brings total funding to a staggering £196.2m being awarded from the Government’s Local Growth Fund over six years.

David Ralph, Chief Executive of D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership, said:

“Local places know their areas best and the expansion of the Growth Deals further demonstrate Government’s commitment to working with local areas and is a continuation of the changing relationship of devolved funding.

“We are continuing to develop the D2N2 economy as nationally recognised excellence in skills development and innovation in key economic sectors such as planes, trains and automobiles, life sciences and the low carbon economy. The expanded Growth Deal helps deliver that aspiration, and will help inspire our business base to work collaboratively to deliver the new jobs, in the right place, at the right scale.”

Peter Richardson, Chairman of D2N2, said: “We are absolutely committed to positioning this area to compete in the global economy and secure our goal of helping create 55,000 private sector jobs by 2023. The £22m in our expanded Growth Deal will help secure a strong, sustainable and increasingly resilient economy in D2N2, the UK’s most inspirational postcode.”

Over £20 million in extra spending has been generated and 381 jobs created locally since Visit Peak District & Derbyshire launched its latest major marketing push, ‘The World Away’ – worth £600,000 over three years.

And almost half the people surveyed said that successive broadcast, online and print promotions since 2012 had made them more likely to consider the area for a holiday or short break.

Research carried out on behalf of national tourist board VisitEngland reveals that the upsurge in interest in the Peak District and Derbyshire has been achieved thanks to Visit Peak District & Derbyshire’s share in a £19.8 million pot of money from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF).

Marketing activity in previous years has included a £150,000 multi-media campaign, including the Peak District and Derbyshire’s first-ever television commercial, screened in ITV’s Anglia and Central (East and West) regions and available on Video on Demand (VOD).

This year promotion is focusing on VOD in the ITV Granada and Central West regions until the end of March and paid advertising on Facebook and YouTube, backed by 250,000 A5 leaflets funded by D2N2, The Local Enterprise Partnership for Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, to reach specific audiences across Birmingham and Greater Manchester.

Website activity also includes The World Away Giveaway – a competition worth more than £2,000 hosted at www.visitpeakdistrict.com/win including many great prizes such as family silver membership for two adults and three children at Chatsworth.

And businesses across the area and beyond are being urged to make the campaign even more successful by sharing Visit Peak District & Derbyshire’s multi-platform content on their websites and social media.

“We are delighted that our involvement in ‘Growing Tourism Locally’ is paying such high dividends for the Peak District and Derbyshire,” said Jo Dilley, Destination Management Organisation (DMO) Director.

“The message is that the Peak District and Derbyshire is affordable, accessible and open all year – and the tourism industry, both locally and further afield, can make our efforts even more successful by sharing our content across a number of digital platforms.

“Looking ahead, we hope to build on the success we have achieved since 2012 by securing a share in the £10 million ‘Northern Futures’ campaign, unveiled by the Government last year – designed to lure tourists out of London to enjoy the North’s stunning countryside, history and culture and due to be launched this spring.”

Casa Hotel in Chesterfield has been announced as one of the top 5 hotels in the UK in the Trip Advisor 2015 Travellers’ Choice Awards.

The independent 4 star luxury hotel has been voted the 5th best hotel in the UK ahead of London’s Corinthia and Goring Hotels  – the latter being famously associated with Kate Middleton and her stay prior to her wedding to Prince William, which were placed 6th and 7th respectively in the prestigious list.

Twenty-five hotels feature in the Trip Advisor 2015 Top UK Hotels list, which was revealed on 21st January this year.  Casa is the only hotel from the Midlands region and one of only two in the North of England to feature in the top five. Of the 25 hotels voted as the UK’s best, less than half (12) are from outside London.

This year’s Trip Advisor listing sees a rise of five places since 2014 for the 100 bedroom Casa Hotel, which is located on the outskirts of Chesterfield town centre and owned by local entrepreneur, Steve Perez.

Commenting on the achievement, Steve Perez said: “The team and I are delighted with the award. We all work tirelessly to provide the best stay for our guests and I am delighted and grateful that so many of them have taken the time and trouble to share their opinions on Trip Advisor. We value all feedback and actively use it to further improve. It’s a great accolade and wonderful to be one of only a few hotels outside London, recognised in Trip Advisor’s top 25, that delivers an excellent experience for guests. It is true Derbyshire hospitality coming to the fore.”

The Spanish-themed Casa Hotel earned the top five listing following 800 reviews on Trip Advisor, the world’s largest online community, with 84% of reviewers rating their stay at the hotel as ‘excellent’ and a total of 98% rating it either ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. In the reviews guests regularly describe their stay at Casa as ‘awesome’, ‘fabulous’, ‘faultless’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘a pure delight’.

The Spanish heritage of the hotel’s owner Steve Perez runs right through Casa, from the décor to its 2 Rosette awarded Cocina restaurant, where the chefs cook using Spanish charcoal fired ovens

As well as priding itself on exemplary customer service, Casa is one of the only hotels in the UK to boast balcony hot tubs and saunas in its suites.  Guests also regularly praise the hotel’s comfortable beds in their Trip Advisor reviews, which are award winning super king-sized Hypnos beds and were specified by the owner himself after he slept on one and credited it with his best ever night’s sleep.

Earlier this year the hotel also won a Laterooms.com Simply the Guest Award, ranking it as a top hotel following guest reviews.

(Image shows Stuart Downham, Operations Director at Casa Hotel celebrating the award with the hotel staff.)

Source:Casa Hotel via In the Works PR