In the latest of our Spotlight blogs, we turn our attention to Ipswich. Located on the River Orwell, 60 miles north east of London, Ipswich is the county town of Suffolk. Continuously occupied since Saxon times, Ipswich’s port has been important to the economy of both the town and the whole of East Anglia. A non-metropolitan district, Ipswich’s urban development and population both extend beyond borough boundaries significantly. At the time of the 2011 census, Ipswich was the fourth most populous urban area in the East of England.
Industry around Ipswich has historically had a strong emphasis on farming and agriculture. More recently that focus has changed, and Ipswich now has a strong base of engineering, science and insurance. Over the past decade, Ipswich has undergone extensive remodelling, principally around the waterfront. This has transformed the former industrial dock into a modern commercial and residential centre. But the town's deep-water ‘Haven Port’ still thrives and handles several million tonnes of cargo each year.
The Suffolk Haven Gateway Employment Land Review (SHGELR) was commissioned by the Haven Gateway Partnership on behalf of Ipswich Borough Council and neighbouring councils (Suffolk Coastal, Suffolk County and Babergh District). This forms part of the evidence for the emerging Local Development Framework (LDF). The East of England Plan identifies ambitious aims to provide the right volume and quality of land to meet the future job-growth target of 30,000 in the region.
Ipswich is the major economic centre of the Suffolk Haven Gateway. The Borough shares some key employment drivers with neighbouring authorities (for example the Port of Felixstowe, Adastral Park, and the A12/14 corridors). Recent industrial and commercial growth includes the continuing success of Ransomes Jacobsen, part of the global engineering giant Textron which is located in Ipswich.
The science campus, Adastral Park, is based at Martlesham Heath and accommodates an array of international companies. Along with Arqiva’s satellite earth station, these include BT Research, Juniper Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Fujitsu, Huawei, 02, and CIP. CAS offers a comprehensive set of advanced data and document management services design to help companies in emerging markets to store and access business critical records. These services now include CAS Cloud, our proprietary digital storage facility deployed by financial services organisations and healthcare suppliers alike.
A recent report showed Ipswich in the top five cities for gross value added growth in the UK in the year to June 2017. The UK Powerhouse study, undertaken by law firm Irwin Mitchell and the Centre for Economics and Business Research, analysed 45 cities across the country. The report singled out the town’s ‘excellent’ conditions for business. What’s more, Ipswich has an impressive track record for start-ups and entrepreneurs, with almost two thirds of business started in Ipswich still operating after three years.
Hundreds of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in the area are indeed helping to grow the local economy. Many of these companies have chosen CAS to provide advanced and secure document storage. Our expertise in records management and facilities management provides practical services for businesses across the widest spectrum including SMEs. Insurance providers may offer reduced costs for contents insurance when business records are stored off-site.
An increasingly skilled local workforce has helped to encourage the growth of both the wholesale and retail insurance sectors in the area. Key employers include Axa, Churchill, Legal & General, LV and Willis. In turn, these businesses are supported by a range of ancillary services such as call centres dealing with sales and claims.
For FCA-registered companies, CAS provides a comprehensive range of financial records storage, confidential document shredding and facilities management services. CAS archive storage and secure document storage, in particular, are ideally structured for Ipswich’s growing insurance sector and include the highest-quality management standards to ensure compliance with all UK and EU laws as well as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX). We’re fully prepared for the General Data Protection Requirement (GDPR), which comes into force in May 2018. Our processes provide clients with auditing reports for the location of every stored box. And to provide an extra level of comfort for financial-sector companies, CAS is fully accredited with a range of ISO certificates.
This blog was prepared using the following data sources: Office for National Statistics (ONS), Ipswich Borough Council, All About Ipswich, The Ipswich Star.
Image By Mkonikkara - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19578442
To find out more how CAS can help local businesses in Ipswich and beyond, contact us today.
The GDPR countdown has begun, are you ready? CAS provides comprehensive and secure document storage and management, scan on demand, and facilities management services. For more than 20 years CAS have worked with NHS Trusts, Financial Services providers, and corporate and private clients. Our head office is just four miles from the City of London, supported by our advanced storage centres across the UK. CAS has an impressive array of International certifications (ISOs), which prove our compliance with the strictest national, European and international laws. They also demonstrate our commitment to provide innovative systems on security, confidentiality and quality control in keeping your files safe and well managed.