Simon and Remy discuss a major investment into renewable energy, the future of Knowsley and look ahead to Insider's annual Dealmakers Awards Dinner.
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00:00We visit Knowsley, a look ahead at dealmakers and investment in renewable
00:05energy. That's what's coming up in today's Daily Business Briefing.
00:14Hi, I'm Simon Keegan. I'm Remy Greasley. So Remy, is there any stories that have
00:20jumped out at you today from the Insider website? Yeah, so one that I like to
00:25particularly keep an eye on is sort of renewable energy stories we have going
00:30on. One out of the North East today was from Sia Wind. They're building
00:36sort of quite a big factory to create what are called wind monopiles. What's a
00:41monopile? So if you imagine a wind turbine, it's the thing that goes
00:46underneath, I guess, to keep it upright and also keep it operational. So they've
00:51now made an additional 225 million pound investment into a new factory that
00:58they're currently constructing at the Teesside Freeport. And that will bring
01:04the sort of overall investment in that factory to 900 million. And then the sort
01:09of idea from that is to then start exporting these wind monopiles to sort
01:15of support, I guess, the global push for renewable energy. There's plenty of wind
01:22up there anyway. How about yourself, Simon? Well, as you know, we've just got the
01:27November issue of the magazine off to the printers. Now one of the things that
01:32we've got featured in there is the International Trade Awards shortlist.
01:37Now I went to visit one of the companies that's in the shortlist. Now regular
01:42viewers will know I have a bit of a penchant for whiskey and gin. And so I
01:48went up to the Forest Distillery. Really, really interesting place. That's, if
01:53you know the old Cat and Fiddle pub, it's on the road between Macclesfield and
01:58Buxton. So they've transformed the pub into a distillery. So they've been
02:03doing gin there for a while, but now they've started whiskey. Obviously that's
02:07going to be in the barrel for a little bit longer. So I'll be looking forward to
02:11trying that when it's ready. When it's ready, yeah. If you're
02:16listening, Carl, me and Remy are happy to try that for you. Other things we've got
02:20in the issue, we've got the SME 300. So you can find out the most successful
02:26companies in that small and medium-sized range. We've also got coverage of the
02:3242 Under 42 event. It was great that wasn't it? Yeah, very nice. First time there
02:37myself, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yeah, and our first time at the AO Arena for it as
02:41well. So you can read all about that. Also in that issue, you've been working
02:46on a feature on Knowsley, haven't you, for our regional section. So you got out
02:51there in the patch, didn't you? Spoke to some people? Yeah, Knowsley's somewhere
02:55quite close to home for me, being someone living in Liverpool. But I don't
02:59want to give too much away now, because obviously you'll have to read it in the
03:03magazine. But I spoke to some of the, I think, the biggest stakeholders in the
03:07region, in both public and private sector. And one in particular was Mike Harden,
03:12who's the outgoing CEO of Knowsley Council. And I had a really nice sit down
03:17with him, talking a bit on, you know, reflecting on the legacy he's leaving. He
03:22came in 10 years ago, when the council, the sort of area, was under some quite
03:28hard times. And he's managed to turn it around. And really the sort of idea I got
03:33from most of my interviews was this idea of sort of a rebirth. The
03:39foundations have been fixed. Now it's time to see where Knowsley can go.
03:44It's a lot of industry there, a lot of strong manufacturers particularly, isn't it?
03:47I think it's definitely somewhere that people maybe sleep on. Yeah, yeah, but
03:52definitely a really important part of the Liverpool City region as well.
03:57Well, something else that we've got coming up. This week actually is one of
04:01our biggest events of the year. It's kind of an event season really, isn't it?
04:05We've got everything happening. We've just recently had the Liverpool Property
04:08Awards. We recently had 42 under 42. This week we've got Dealmakers, Xert, big one.
04:14Yeah, so that's going to be in Manchester Central, as ever. So that will be
04:19Thursday night, so Friday morning. Look out for some video coverage of that
04:23event. Or even better, if you're going, we'll see you there.
04:29Remy, that's all we've got time for. Thanks Simon. Thank you.