Companies across the West Midlands are benefiting from the HS2 infrastructure project, ahead of its arrival in 2026 by accessing tailored funding streams to grow their businesses, delivering new jobs across the region.
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The West Midlands Combined Authority\u2019s HS2 Growth Strategy was created to ensure the region is placed to maximise the benefits accruing from the high-speed rail project. A key part of this strategy is access to finance, enabling businesses to invest in the capabilities required to work with HS2, which will contribute to the strategy\u2019s targets – an additional \u00a314bn increase in GVA and 104,000 jobs.<\/p>\n
The Business Growth Fund, run by Birmingham City Council, has already helped more than 500 SME\u2019s to grow their businesses, at the end of 2018 the fund had generated \u00a340m of private sector investment, creating 1,600 jobs, and increasing GVA by \u00a3100m.<\/p>\n
The Rail Supply Growth Fund, which is managed by Finance Birmingham, is another fund allowing West Midlands businesses to grow their capabilities and capacity. The fund has supported Coventry based Penso Group, with a \u00a32m loan to accelerate the innovation and production of their revolutionary composite design of a train door, and Fenix TS, which is located in Stratford Upon Avon, to develop and bring a new innovation rail depot signalling system to the UK, creating an additional 20 jobs.<\/p>\n
The economic benefits currently being felt across the region are a sign of the influence HS2 has on the regional economy, considering the major work programmes have yet to start. The region\u2019s businesses can now look to the main civils work starting in 2019 and the construction of the two new West Midlands stations, which will commence in 2022, to provide further contract opportunities and job creation.<\/p>\n