Last week we represented Northamptonshire at the Advanced Engineering UK 2011 group of events at the NEC in Birmingham, which brought together some of the UK's highest-growth advanced engineering companies through four co-locating shows, each supporting a different, but complementary focus area within the industry.
This year, the event comprised of Composites Engineering Show and Aero Engineering both well-established shows which doubled in size in 2011 and two new strands: Energy Engineering, and the UK Plastic Electronics Show.
The event aimed to support the government’s agenda to re-balance the UK economy towards high value manufacturing and technology sectors, and created a unique and dynamic destination for businesses to network, share ideas and drive growth across the whole of the sector.
Our aim was to promote Northamptonshire’s position as one of the leading regions in the UK for advanced engineering. The region offers a wide range of benefits, such as high levels of specialist skills, a cluster of liked-minded businesses and a supportive business community. Northamptonshire is already home to many businesses in these sectors, such as Scott Bader and Cosworth, and it is a sector we are actively looking to grow and support in the future.
As one of the key sectors of the Northamptonshire economy, we are currently undertaking a range of projects to examine how we can best support and nurture advanced engineering companies within the county both now and in future. Next week, we are meeting with key individuals within this sector as part of our High Performance Technology Steering Group to discuss our plans for supporting the wider industry in Northamptonshire.
