Prosper Autumn, Black Country Chamber of Commerce magazine

NEWS IN BRIEF
Council sets out seven steps
to bring Sandwell success
Sandwell Council has launched an Inclusive
Recovery Action Plan aimed at accelerating
business growth and creating a wealthier
Sandwell.
With a £6.5bn economy and twice the
number of manufacturing firms to the
national average, Sandwell is home to
fast-growing, high-employment and
high-turnover businesses, including East
End Foods, Steel & Alloy and Hadley
Industries.
The Sandwell Council’s Inclusive Recovery
Action Plan is a five-year plan setting out
the council’s seven priorities to grow local
businesses while addressing long term
challenges.
1. Make Sandwell the home of the
start-ups, bringing new businesses into its
town centres and high streets
2. Accelerate growth in higher value
businesses, tapping into the growth of the
West Midlands economy, to stimulate wider
investment and opportunity
3. Deliver net zero carbon emissions in
Rapid Pack, a third-party
logistics (3PL) company founded
in 2021 has recently moved to
brand new warehouse facilities
in Oldbury.
Working with e-commerce
sellers and taking care of
storing, picking, packing and
shipping, the rapidly growing
company works with a variety of
business sectors including
fashion, shoes, beauty and
cosmetics, toys, ambient food
and drink, furniture, tech and
art.
Director Ben Slater is now
looking forward to offering
future employment
opportunities to people from
the local area.
Matt Warman, Minister for Media, Data
and Digital Identity in the Department of
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has
toured the sight of an exciting new project
at the University of Wolverhampton.
The new £5 million Wolverhampton
Sandwell by 2041, helping businesses
achieve energy efficiency and adopt a
circular economy model
4. Increase new inward investment and
investment from existing businesses to
create good jobs, and more of them
5. Establish Sandwell as a growing centre
of health and care innovation, with the new
hospital development a springboard
6. Improve the amount and quality of
work available, focused on raising wages
and skill levels
7. Make community wealth-building a
reality through local procurement and social
value processes.
Screen School has been transformed with
investment in industry-standard, state-ofthe-art
equipment with the aim of
boosting skills in the digital arts and media
industries.
It has a new production space, an
World champ Katie
visits the gym
Minister on hand to check out university’s new film studio
You’ve been a
knock-out,
boxer tells gym
A Black Country boxer has praised the gym
which helped her to become world
champion.
Katie Healy from Bilston became the new
WBF Super Bantamweight champion in
South Africa in July and said it was the
strength and conditioning work she had
done with Santino and Carlo Sellick at
Ironmasters Gym in Bilston that had been
the difference in her successful title fight.
Gym owner Santino Sellick said he had
watched the fight with his family and spoke
of how proud he was about Katie’s success,
“When she lifted that belt, I felt so proud for
her, first and foremost, but also for the gym
and for Bilston having a world champion,”
he said.
equipment media store, a video studio
with movable partitions and a large
multi-purpose studio. There are also new
Mac labs, edit suites and a production
base room, as well as a green-screen,
three-camera TV studio.
12 PROSPER AUTUMN 2022