We’ll be attending the upcoming UK Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) in May this year, to showcase investment opportunities across Kirklees.
What is UKREiiF?
This year’s UKREiiF will take place between 21 and 23 May in Leeds. If you haven’t heard of UKREiiF, it’s the UK’s biggest real estate exhibition and a key networking event which annually connects more than 6,000 investors, funders and developers from across the UK and around the world. Business Kirklees representing Kirklees Council at the event is an opportunity to secure more investment for Kirklees, in the form of both funding and high quality development partners.
What are we showcasing?
Across Kirklees, billions of pounds of investment is planned over the next ten years in both private and public infrastructure. This investment is all about driving economic growth, transforming towns, and providing more opportunities for businesses, investors and developers looking for good returns – which gives us new opportunities to showcase to potential investors and development partners.
We’re attending as part of a wider delegation from across West Yorkshire, based on the event’s West Yorkshire pavilion.
Fringe event – Huddersfield: The Future of Health Innovation
As well as attending the three-day event and promoting Kirklees’ wide-ranging development opportunities and potential, on Tuesday 21 May we’ll be hosting a fringe event in partnership with the University of Huddersfield and Huddersfield Unlimited. The event will specifically focus on local investment opportunities in the health and wellbeing sector.
This focus will be particularly well-timed as Kirklees Council moves forward with development of its Station to Stadium Enterprise Corridor, centring on the university’s National Health Innovation Campus – which sits next to our flagship business centre, the Glass Box. Through development of this enterprise corridor, we’ll be working with partners to attract more businesses to the industrial district stretching between John Smith’s Stadium and Huddersfield Railway Station, and support these businesses to grow and expand.
This development is supported by recent government investment through the West Yorkshire Life Sciences Investment Zone. The Investment Zone, which was announced in November last year, will focus on supporting innovation in the health, wellbeing and digital industries, and will see Kirklees (alongside other West Yorkshire authorities) receive government investment to boost innovation, productivity and growth, and support the commercialisation of research.
We’ll be sharing lots mor detail about our UKREiiF fringe event, the topics covered and Kirklees’ opportunities for investment closer to the time.
Councillor Cathy Scott, Leader of Kirklees Council, says:
“This event is a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase how much we have going on in Kirklees. We have a wealth of ambitious regeneration projects, many of which are already moving at pace, and over the coming years we have even bigger plans to maximise Kirklees’ potential.
“To deliver the best for people who live and work in Kirklees, opportunities like this are crucial to bring in more interest and investment, make meaningful connections with skilled delivery partners, and make sure we’re pushing Kirklees to the forefront to keep us moving in the right direction.
“It’s particularly exciting to be holding our own event focusing on the health and wellbeing sector, which is vitally important – not just for us in here in Kirklees but for people all around the world. We’re thrilled to be partnering with the University of Huddersfield, whose new campus is already making waves and will anchor so many of these industry developments, and with Huddersfield Unlimited, who have always championed local businesses and investors, and who partnered with us to deliver a fantastic event at UKREiiF last year.”
Next stage of Heckmondwike Blueprint begins
Kirklees Council have started works at the site of the former market hall in Heckmondwike town centre.