A ONE-stop shop for business support in the dale is preparing to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
Enterprise House, in Harmire Enterprise Park, Barnard Castle was established in 1998. Since then, dozens of organisations have benefited.
A celebration to mark the milestone is due to take place on Tuesday, May 22. Teesdale Development Company runs the centre.
Its chairman, Alastair Dinwiddie, said: “I think we need to mark the moment. It is quite an achievement for a company still to be going after 20 years. It is quite unique.”
Two decades ago, the then Labour government gave local authorities the freedom to raise capital funds to carry out projects to develop the economy in their areas.
Teesdale District Council developed a scheme to be based at Enterprise House and occupied by the Teesdale Training Centre and Houghall College. The aim was to bring training and business support services under one roof.
The scheme also aimed to work with other organisations to maximise resources, expertise and benefits to the community – an objective which Enterprise House still keeps to today as it works to help ventures in Teesdale thrive.
The council’s bid for capital support was successful as was an application for finance from the European Regional Development Fund of the EU. With support from the Rural Development Commission, a non-profit company, known as the Teesdale Development Company, was established to manage the centre.
Mr Dinwiddie said: “It is very much a metamorphosis.
“We have changed and continue to change. In those days funding was easy to get hold of. The Labour government had a different philosophy altogether to the current government. The nature of Enterprise House has changed over the time.
“The idea was that we would catalyse enterprise in Teesdale. We have to be quite creative in how we do that.”
The board now has seven directors and remains, with different partners, responsible for developing the initiative and day-to-day operation of the building.
Enterprise House, which is now entirely self-funded, is the only space in Barnard Castle where a number of businesses can work under one roof in a building managed by a sererate company.
In 2004, it expanded by providing small units for start-up businesses in the area vacated by Houghall College.
Enterprises using these spaces benefit from new IT and broadband with a shared reception area and conference rooms.
Further funding in 2009 enabled a lift to be installed for disabled access. There are currently 14 tenants occupying the building, as well as six virtual clients. These range from marine engineering to accountancy and finance companies.
Mr Dinwiddie said: “Enterprise House is an asset and I think we are lucky to have it.
“Public sector funding is in such short supply. We live or die on our occupancy. We try to keep it as busy as we can.
“If we can keep the occupancy up, we will continue to do what we do and continue to catalyse enterprise in Teesdale.”
