West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) chief executive Paul Wilson has spoken about the role his organisation is playing in engaging with the area’s diverse communities and helping close the gap between wealth and skills.
Mr Wilson appeared as a guest on Bristol community radio station Ujima’s Old Skool Cruising Show earlier this week with Ujima chair and presenter Roger Griffith and his team of young media volunteers.
St Pauls-based Ujima broadcasts music, conversation and issues to 24,000 listeners online www.ujimaradio.com and through its 98FM frequency.
It provides a great opportunity for people of all backgrounds to enter the media and is run entirely by 100-plus volunteers without any funding.
Mr Wilson explained why he wanted to work for the LEP. “This looked like a way to bring a mixture of the business community with a good business understanding with developing people, mixing that in with universities and colleges and stimulating an economy in one of the biggest downturns that we’ve had in more than a life time,” he said.
The LEP aims to draw investment and growth into Bristol and the West of England including Bath and Weston-super-Mare, by encouraging sustainability and creating new private sector jobs.
It intends to create 95,000 jobs by 2030, 3.4% annual growth by 2020 and get investment of more than £1bn into the private sector over the next three years.
MrWilson, who took on the LEP’s top job just over a year ago, said: “We’ve put in about £16million into the economy and that’s attracted about £70m of private sector money and created nearly 2,000 jobs.
“The resilience of the economy locally depends much more on small companies than it depends on big companies, minority groups are doing a better job of starting small companies and the longevity of them locally is greater than it is nationally. That’s one of the important reasons why our economy here in the West of England is actually doing better than the majority of other cities around the country.”
Roger Griffith said: “It was great to host Paul and that the local community gets to hear a human side of one of Bristol’s business leader’s. Paul has experience of volunteering, from being assaulted protecting Lady Diana working for a homeless charity, to supporting heroin addicts in Hong Kong.
“He understands how much the community and voluntary sectors pay an important part in adding social value to the city. We look forward to the West of England LEP’s support and investment so we can continue to develop talent for Bristol’s future.
The Old Skool Cruising Show airs on Ujima 98FM from 4pm to 7pm every Monday and features music, chat and interviews with Bristol's top business leaders and community members.
Safia Yallaoui is a UWE Media Studies student and member of the Old Skool Cruising Team
Pictured, from left: Michael Burrows, Paul Wilson, Roger Griffith and Safia Yalloui
