Chch centre may help jobless start business

Press, 2 December 1981, Page 1

Chch centre may help jobless start business

An. “innovation centre may be established in Christchurch next year to help unemployed people set up their own small businesses. The idea of such a centre, which was endorsed yesterday by the Christchurch City Council’s job-creation working party, is based on a project which has been implemented successful by the Tyne and Wear County Council in Britain. .’ The centre would try to help unemployed people with good business ideas but with insufficient knowledge of procedures and a lack of facilities and finance to turn

these ideas into an invention or a viable venture. Facilities to produce prototypes of inventions, advice on patenting, and assistance with initial finance would be available through the centre. It is envisaged that the centre would be complementary to the council’s smallbusiness programme, which is expected to be launched in February. Representatives of employers, manufacturers, agriculturists, and exporters would be invited to form a working party, with the council acting as a catalyst, to meet late in January to discuss the establishment of

the “innovation centre." The concept of setting up co-operative small-business schemes in vacant buildings was discussed at a council meeting yesterday. A survey of vacant buildings in Christchurch which could be made available for such schemes will be undertaken. The Mayor of Christchurch. Mr Hamish Hay, said that if the council leased such premises it could partition them and offer space at a reasonably cheap rental to help small businesses to get started. The council’s proposed small-business programme had received an enthusiastic response from banks, which the council hoped would pro-

vide initial finance at realistic interest rates to get the schemes off the ground. The council’s employment promotion co-ordinator. Mr G. R. Stevenson, said that the aim of the programme would be "to get people into business and keep them there” by providing good advice. Plenty of people were starting up businesses but because they were ill-prepared or poorly advised they were “going broke." Under various Labour Department subsidised work and training schemes, the council had created more than 1800 jobs in the last year but because of a lack of supervisors for some of the jobs almost 400 jobs had been unable to be taken nn