Innovation UK > News > Innovation UK Vol4-1 > St. Helens - Connectivity, Catchment, Cost

When considering potential locations for your business you need compelling motives and a sound justification to make the right decision. St.Helens provides you with a wealth of reasons to be your regional business location of choice. St.Helens has been independently highlighted as one of the most advantageous office locations in the country. This status is thanks to its prime regional connectivity, midway between Liverpool and Manchester, a catchment of 7 million residents, clients and customers and a highly cost-effective, business-friendly environment. St.Helens is also recognised as one of the 11 top performing districts in the UK (joint 1st in the North West) in terms of business start-up growth rates.

St.Helens offers a good choice of quality office and business accommodation, supported by a proactive Investment and Aftercare Team and the best Chamber of Commerce in the country. Reinforcing the Borough?s growing profile as a prime business location is the fact that St.Helens was the only district in the North West to successfully bid for Round 1 Local Enterprise Growth Initiative funding. The £13.4 million secured is explicitly intended to foster enterprise by attracting new businesses, nurturing start-ups, and helping existing businesses to grow via a range of targeted initiatives over the next three years. St.Helens is well known for its innovation and quality across a range of manufacturing sectors and is a popular choice for the distribution and logistics industry. Innovative and dynamic companies have selected St.Helens as their new location or expanded their existing business and are now benefiting from improved competitiveness and productivity.

Access to a skilled workforce, knowledge base, resources and support of 15 local universities, prestigious conference and training facilities have increased the Borough?s attraction as a profitable business base. Biotechnology company, Bachem (UK) Ltd confirmed its commitment to St.Helens with a £1.1 million expansion as a centre of excellence to develop manufacturing processes for innovative biochemical and pharmaceutical compound production.

MoneyExpert.com moved to St.Helens in 2004 and has grown into one of the top financial comparison websites in the UK. The company sees the Borough as an ideal location to operate centrally in the Northwest, without paying the premiums of city centre rent.

On securing a £1.5 million investment package, Blue Prism, an enterprise software business, relocated to St.Helens. They saw the great potential and excellent support network for ICT business in the region. St.Helens has undergone an impressive transformation in recent years and has plenty to offer to businesses and prospective investors. The attraction of the Borough is enhanced by an all-round leisure offer that spans glorious countryside, first class sport and amenities, stylish town and country residential developments, a year-round calendar of quality events, and vibrant shopping and nightlife.

If you want to find other reasons to locate in St.Helens, please call
John Quirk, Business Location Service on 01744 742 011,
visit www.investinsthelens.com or e-mail