Lunchtime Meeting - 12:45pm - Speaker Vernon Hogg, Hadleigh Works Oswestry @ 13:30pm

Space, support and advice offered for entrepreneurs in Oswestry

By Sue Austin, Oswestry

Shropshire Star - published: Jan 17, 2022

A new co-working centre in Oswestry is to include a fully-funded support programme to help local people get their business ideas off the ground.

The new co-working centre, Hadleigh Works, is due to open early in 2022 based in the top floor of Oswestry’s Memorial Hall in the town’s Festival Square.
It will feature flexible working space and communal areas available to small businesses and entrepreneurs at a regular fixed fee.

The project has been funded by Shropshire Council’s Economic Growth Recovery Programme using Government funding to directly support business recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now the Hadleigh Works team has joined forces with the award-winning Birmingham Enterprise Community to offer a free Start Up Sprint programme for up to 20 existing and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Vernon Hogg of the Hadleigh Works team said: “We don’t just want to provide a space to work. We want to encourage entrepreneurship across the region.

“This scheme will provide support and mentors for the entrepreneurs of the future and encourage business ideas that will create a legacy of economic growth across Oswestry and the surrounding areas.”

A Start Up Sprint programme will cover six weeks and will take budding new entrepreneurs through the process of turning their ideas into a launched business.

It will include step-by-step guides to the basics of setting up a business as well as giving access to a network of business and community mentors.

Vernon said that it was a real coup to have attracted the expertise and support of the Birmingham Enterprise Community for Oswestry.

The organisation was founded in 2019 with aim of creating a positive social impact through entrepreneurship. It has since developed a range of programmes to support businesses of all sizes, across all sectors.

“The Birmingham Enterprise Community has helped hundreds of businesses successfully start up with this nationally recognised programme. Now we are able to bring that expertise to Oswestry with places for up to 20 delegates funded by the Economic Growth Recovery Programme,” said Vernon.