Agenda item - Chair's Communications

13.1      The Chair provided the following communication:

“Crawley Borough Council and Gatwick Airport Ltd were invited to join the Greater Brighton Economic Board during the summer.  I am pleased that Crawley’s Chief Executive, Natalie Brahma-Pearl, and Alison Addy, Head of Community Engagement at Gatwick, are able to join us today.

Crawley Borough Council formally accepted the invitation to join at their Council meeting on 18 October.  The Local Authority constituent members now need to ratify Crawley’s membership to the Board, and subject to those individual ratifications, the aim is that both Crawley and Gatwick Airport will be officially welcomed as Board members at our next meeting on 6 February 2018.

On 28 September, the Sussex Innovation Centre celebrated its 21st birthday and held an open evening with over 40 of its tenant companies plus additional exhibitors opening their doors to visitors and demonstrating their new technologies and services.  Over the past 21 years, many technology companies have started in this Centre and have made a significant contribution to the local economy of the City Region.

On 6 October Wired Sussex held its 10-year anniversary party of it becoming an independent organisation.  Wired Sussex is a membership organisation for companies and freelancers operating in the digital, media and technology sector in Sussex.  Wired Sussex helps its members to create, innovate and grow.  They are based at New England House, which is also home to the Digital Catapult and 5G Test Bed, which has received support through LGF funding.

The west bank of the Newhaven Flood Alleviation scheme, comprising two earth embankments, a flood gate and several hundred metres of concrete flood wall, was completed in early October 2017.  This is a major milestone for the project and provides protection from tidal flooding for 244 residential homes and 88 businesses.

From 5-9 September, The British Science Festival came to the City Region for the first time since 1983.  Co-hosted by the Universities of Brighton and Sussex, it saw events taking place on both campuses and across the city.

The British Science Association have been finalising the evaluation report that is being prepared for the Festival Steering Group.  We are grateful for the British Science Association providing the information below ahead of the official release of the report.

More than 150 events took place during the course of the five days involving 350 researchers.

Over 11,000 tickets were booked, with a total projected audience of 18,000 (lots of the events were informal, without the need to book tickets)

The Festival generated over 530 pieces of media coverage – across print, broadcast and online – with an estimated coverage reach of around 308 million. 

The website this year received a total of 385,188 page views, almost three times that of last year.

The Brighton BikeShare scheme launched on 1 September.   The network involves 50 docking stations and around 450 bikes.   Early uptake figures are very encouraging suggesting it is set to be one of the top-performing bike share scheme in the UK.  The first 30 days saw over 9,000 registrations, and an average of 800 journeys on the Bikes per day.  In the first 30 days users cycled 50,000 miles – almost a quarter of the way to the moon, or more than twice around the world.

I am also pleased to report that a few weeks ago American Express was unveiled as co-sponsor of the scheme.  American Express is one of the leading private sector employers in Greater Brighton, and sponsoring the scheme builds on their strong links with the City Region”.