Alice and Jen discuss the £58m redevelopment of two Liverpool museums, the acquisition of a BMW dealer established by a former racing driver, 50 new jobs at a Welsh bakery and funding for a West Yorkshire electric vehicle charging company.
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00:00Record overseas sales at a Wrexham bakery, funding for an electric vehicle charging company,
00:06the acquisition of a significant BMW and MINI dealership all feature in today's Business Briefing.
00:12INTRO MUSIC
00:17Hello, I'm Jennifer O'Keefe.
00:19And I'm Alice Bird.
00:21So Alice, what have you spotted in today's news?
00:24Well, yesterday, Liverpool City Council's Planning Committee met to discuss and sign off some pretty significant projects.
00:32One of which is the £58m redevelopment of the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum.
00:39So as part of the project, the Dr Martin Luther King Jr building will become a prominent new entrance to the International Slavery Museum.
00:48So we do have a picture of what that will look like on our website.
00:51It's like, it's a really standout piece.
00:53And I think the aim of that is to start a conversation, you know, draw people's attention.
00:59So if you want to have a look at that, make sure to check out the article.
01:02Alongside that, the Hartley Pavilion, which currently houses both museums,
01:07will become a multifunctional space for community collaboration, events and educational activity too.
01:14So this is a really important development.
01:16And Catherine Dewar, who is Historic England's Northwest Regional Director, welcomed the approval.
01:21She said that the core aspiration of the project is to emphasise the importance of black people's stories to Liverpool's history.
01:28Also at the Planning Committee, the committee members signed off plans to redevelop the former Littlewoods building.
01:37So that's a really big development. We've covered it quite a lot on Insider.
01:40And it aims to support the region's ambition to being the Hollywood of the North.
01:45So Capital & Centric is behind the scheme and it will include a soundstage, film studio complex and office and leisure spaces.
01:53Brilliant. Some great developments then happening in Liverpool.
01:56Yeah.
01:57Well, down in Wales next.
01:59So you may have heard of the very popular bakery brand, Jones Village Bakery.
02:03So it's a Wrexham headquartered bakery business.
02:07And it has just announced that it has created 50 new jobs as a result of record overseas sales and landing two recent contracts.
02:15So these contracts include supplying gluten-free supplies to seven Gulf states in the Middle East, as well as shipping products across Australia.
02:26So it's very exciting news.
02:28And further to this, the bakery is also experiencing a surge in demand across Europe.
02:33So particularly in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany.
02:39So the firm's growing success with overseas sales has been recognised as well by the Welsh government.
02:45And they have named the Village Bakery as an official Welsh export champion.
02:51Excellent.
02:52It's always nice to see businesses actually growing a lot, especially after quite a few difficult years for business.
02:58Definitely.
02:59Well, I have a deal next in the East Midlands where a BMW and Mini dealership, which was established by a former racing driver, has been acquired by a listed US company.
03:10So Group 1 Automotive is a Fortune 250 company.
03:14It has 260 dealerships across the US and the UK.
03:17So it's massive.
03:19And that's acquired Sopa of Lincoln.
03:22So if you're a racing fan, you can probably guess that that was set up by Steve Sopa.
03:27Although he did actually sell the business in 2015.
03:30But, you know, he's had a long association with the BMW brand.
03:34And he raced extensively in sports cars and touring cars.
03:37He competed in lots of championships, British, European, Japanese and German, as well as the Le Mans 24 Hours.
03:45So, you know, looks like really good news for them moving forward.
03:48Brilliant.
03:49Well, actually, on the same topic of cars, an electric vehicle charging company called We Power Your Car, they have received funding from Finance Yorkshire to support their expansion.
04:01So the company is based in Bingley and last year reported sales of over £2.6 million.
04:08So it's now receiving £750,000 from the Yorkshire fund, which it said it's going to use to scale its operations and attract more domestic and commercial customers across the UK.
04:19Right now, the business employs 50 people, including 25 engineers who installed the electric vehicle charging points at a customer's premises.
04:32The company also has strategic partners that carry out installations for their customers.
04:38The business's chief executive, Alex McWhirter, said that the investment will support its growth as it scales up its operations and create new jobs in Yorkshire.
04:48That's good news for Yorkshire.
04:49And I imagine we'll see a lot more of those types of businesses growing moving forward, you know, as people transition to electric vehicles.
04:55Definitely.
04:56Obviously, they need people to set up the charging points for them.
04:59Definitely.
05:00So if you do want to read more about that article or any of the stories that we've discussed today, you can do so on insidermedia.com.
05:07While you're there, feel free to subscribe to our newsletters and our magazines.
05:11Thanks for watching.