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Comment by Business Editor Paul Grinnell
IT HAS taken seven years of discussion and planning.
IT HAS taken seven years of discussion and planning.And later this week in a glitzy celebration Peterborough's Eco-Innovation Centre at Peterscourt, City Road, will finally open.
From the outside, the centre, which will act as a nursery for new environment-based businesses, will be nothing much to look at. Indeed, the city's movers and shakers have already built its demise into their strategy for a major growth of Peterborough's environment sector.
It seems to be accepted that the centre's lifespan will be about three years after which it will move lock, stock and barrel into the purpose built, all singing, all dancing Green Quarter – effectively a business park dedicated to the high-class, high-skilled firms which produce products or services that have a beneficial impact on the environment.
The centre's importance lies in the fact that it has happened at all. It should help to silence the scoffers who say Peterborough is all talk and no action.
It is the first major project that has been brought to fruition in a year that the chairman of the Opportunity Peterborough urban regeneration company, Tony Allum, has already said is going to be a year of delivery.
It is important because it brings these valuable businesses of the future together. It will act as a focal point for the environment sector and should attract interest across the UK. But the message will not spread of its own accord.
Peterborough still lacks a proper marketing agency – call it what you like, for instance, One Peterborough or Peterborough Promotions – dedicated to telling companies, town halls, agencies and quangos nationally and internationally exactly what the city has to offer.
Even the centre's website is still under construction!
Urgent attention needs to be given to telling the rest of the country exactly what it is that Peterborough is achieving otherwise it will never achieve its full potential.
Most of our rival cities already have some sort of structure in place to trumpet why job creating companies should set up within their boundaries.
If Peterborough is serious about inward investment it must follow suit – and quickly.
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Weather for Peterborough
Wednesday 23 May 2012
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Temperature: 11 C to 22 C
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Wind direction: North
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