The Lancashire section includes governance, overview, sectors, top 10 companies, knowledge, property, transport, culture and top 10 attractions.
More than meets the eye
Lancashire is shrugging off its traditional association with begrimed smokestacks and embracing a technology-driven economy instead.
Pennine Lancashire in particular has suffered from this perception, yet there is increasingly much more to the east of the county than ailing manufacturing businesses and forlorn mills.
This is not to say that local people have forgotten their proud history of entrepreneurial panache, but rather they are rediscovering the innovation that made the area an industrial powerhouse in the first place.
A sure sign of a grass-roots entrepreneurial resurgence is a marked increase in the number of VAT-registered businesses in the area. The Small Business Service calculated that figures rose from 12,965 in 2002 to 13,940 in 2006, up 7.5 per cent.
Among success stories is Nelson-based telecommunications business Daisy Communications, which hopes to float on AIM and is preparing to raise turnover through acquisitions and organic growth.
Few people would name Colne when asked to pick a town that is home to a market-leading software house. But AIM-listed K3 Business Technology, a developer of enterprise resource planning software, is firmly headquartered in the Lancashire town, where it bases all the group’s accounting functions.
Meanwhile, Nelson-based REM UK, which designs and makes hair and beauty equipment, has grown to become one of Europe’s leading producers of salon furniture. The company has been running for 40 years and employs 100 people in Nelson. REM has more than doubled in size in six years from £4m to £9m turnover.
To the west, Preston is getting its act together to compete with Manchester and Liverpool. Tithebarn is the scheme that aims to see Preston mount a serious challenge. The £500m project will see the bus station and many of the buildings around flattened and replaced with modern architecture.
Initial work on the Tithebarn Redevelopment Area (TRA) began in 1999 and planning approval is expected in 2008. Work could start on site in 2010, with completion scheduled for 2013. Preston City Council, the biggest landowner in the TRA site, is working with developer Grosvenor on the project.
One of Lancashire’s most successful business sectors is aerospace, with BAE Systems leading the way with major sites at Warton, near Preston and Samlesbury, near Blackburn. Its military aircraft operations in the county represent the hub of a huge regional aerospace sector with a turnover of £6bn, 70 per cent of which is exported. Among the many specialised aerospace operations across Lancashire are: the Rolls-Royce aero engineering plant at Barnoldswick; John Huddleston Engineering; Euravia; Brookhouse; and NIS Integrated.
Lancashire’s chemicals and chemical products industry is also well established after developing alongside the county’s textiles industry. It is a large, highly interdependent and capital-intensive sector consisting of many large, diversified and vertically integrated companies, as well as many smaller and highly specialised businesses.
Nationally, the industry comprises some 3,700 separate enterprises, with turnover of about £50bn a year, generating £16bn in gross value added and employs around 225,000 people. With a workforce of more than 7,000 at around 150 sites, Lancashire plays a full part.
Around 72 per cent of Lancashire land is used for farming and the county makes a major contribution to the UK’s food supply through intensive horticulture, general cropping on the coastal plains, dairy farming in the the Ribble and Lune Valleys and cattle and sheep rearing in upland areas.