Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 3rd October
Miri and Stephen discuss an award-winning law firm, devolution for Cheshire and Warrington and Manchester's development pipeline.
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00:00Devolution in Cheshire, Manchester property market, manufacturing growth and success at
00:05award-winning law firm, all coming up in today's Daily Business Briefing.
00:15Hi, I'm Mary Thomas. I'm Stephen Favell.
00:18And Stephen, I know today you have spotted a story from an award-winning law firm in
00:22the North East. Yeah, that's right. So we've got the results
00:24for Muckle, very well-named in the legal sector in the North East and familiar from
00:30last week's Dealmakers Awards, of course. They won several awards there. Corporate
00:36Finance Law Firm of the Year being, I guess, the big one. Now, they've had a really strong
00:41year in their last financial results. Turnover and profits have both grown. Turnover to £17
00:47million of 4.5%, profits of 11% to £4.2 million. And so they've said areas like agriculture,
00:55rural estates, private client services have all contributed to that. The corporate team
01:00as well reported record turnover with an 11% jump. And there are various of the public
01:05sector appointments, both regionally and nationally, that contributed to that growth.
01:10Now, they've also said the current year is looking like another period of growth again.
01:14So really strong 2024, 2025 for them. So yeah, good to see an award-winning law firm doing well.
01:22Very good. And so over in the North West, one of the stories I saw today was about
01:28Cheshire and Warrington and the news that devolution in the area will happen sooner
01:33rather than later. Now, we spoke with Gemma Davis of the Cheshire West and Chester Council,
01:38and she told us that although conversations with government were at an early stage,
01:43there was definitely an appetite there to accelerate devolution talks, particularly
01:47in the North. So I think we can expect to see some changes there. And Mayor, I'm not sure,
01:53she did say it was about getting devolution right for the people of the local area.
01:58What else have you spotted today? Well, in Yorkshire, we've got more
02:01financial results. It's time for manufacturer Gripple. Again, a name that might be familiar
02:06from our awards. Earlier this year, they were nominated in three categories, I believe,
02:10in the Made in Sheffield Awards. They were also winner of the King's Award for Enterprise earlier
02:15this year. Again, those award wins are backed up by their financial results, where
02:22for the 2023 year, they reported growth in turnover and profit. They were boosted by
02:29a number of new product launches. They're also continuing to invest in their South Yorkshire
02:33facilities. Now, they've got seven facilities in South Yorkshire at the moment, so
02:37a big name in the region, and they employ about 950 staff worldwide. They've said that further
02:45growth is on the cards from 2024 or 2025, more investment in South Yorkshire and more new
02:51products. And did you say seven sites in South Yorkshire alone?
02:54Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So they've expanded fairly significantly over the last few years.
03:00Real success story for South Yorkshire. Wow. Okay. And then over on our investment
03:05hub newsletter today, we are carrying a story from another event that we held this week,
03:10this time in London. So here we took the Greater Manchester team to London to talk
03:15about the investment opportunities there. And we were told by our investment agent panel that
03:20Manchester has a much thinner development pipeline than any other regional city. And what that means
03:26is that there are fewer new developments coming forward, particularly in residential actually.
03:32So there was a worry a couple of years ago that there'd be an oversupply of apartments and that
03:39we're coming to the market and nobody's going to live in there. But that has not been the case. I
03:43mean, we can see that these are really well let apartments. It's the same with office space as
03:48well. I think there's a real dearth of new office space coming to the market. There's a couple of
03:53buildings that are nearly finished, a couple that are letting well. And I think after that,
03:59who knows what's next. So what the panel were telling us is that this is a real opportunity
04:05and that Manchester was moving into its next cycle. So we can see, we can expect hopefully
04:11lots more investment in the city. We're following up that event actually with the next one for the
04:17East Midlands. So that's again taking the East Midlands story to London and then Yorkshire
04:21back in talking about Yorkshire and that will be in December as well. So that will be taking the
04:27Yorkshire message to London as well. Good to see these places getting a bit of a promotion.
04:32Exactly. So if you want to read about these stories or anything else, head over to our
04:36website, insidermedia.com and we'll be back tomorrow with some more business news.