THE brightest hope for creating jobs in the Kirklees area rests with small and medium-sized businesses.
With the council and police, among others, shedding hundreds of jobs there is a desperate need for replacement employment.
One innovative way forward is revealed in today’s Examiner – the pioneering new Enterprise and Innovation Centre at the University of Huddersfield.
The idea is that this business hub will be home to up to 100 fledgling or entrepreneurial businesses, especially those involved in science and technology.
They will have the backing of the expertise and considerable resources from the university.
So if they need to do vital laboratory research they will be able to use high technology and highly expensive equipment on the campus.
It opens up resources that most companies could never normally hope to access and will help to power the businesses forward.
As they become successful and start to grow, Kirklees Council should be able to then help by providing land for them to relocate to so they can expand into medium-sized enterprises and take on more local people.
Huddersfield was a pioneering area during the industrial revolution.
The university, Kirklees Council and entrepreneurs such as self-made millionaire Graham Leslie have joined forces to get this spirit going again.
The centre will be up and running by next May. Now we need people with the brilliant ideas to step forward and fill the spaces that these modern-day pioneers have had the foresight to provide.
