While councillors here support the county-wide business retention and expansion project, they do question the short time frame involved.
Business retention and expansion project co-ordinator Carolyn O’Donnell, and Wellington County’s economic development officer Jana Reichert took their road show to Puslinch council on July 17.
The project not only involves all seven lower tier municipalities, but the County of Wellington, which would coordinate the efforts.
Reichert spoke briefly on last year’s initiation of an economic development strategy for all of Wellington County. She said it was learned there are four predominant themes in Wellington County: manufacturing, agriculture; health care, and the creative professional sector. In addition, the majority of businesses in Wellington have less than 10 employees.
“We know we need to better understand the activities of these businesses and how we can better support our existing investors,” said Reichert.
Earlier this year, the county developed an economic development implementation plan.
The project will assist in answering several questions – including a comprehensive list of businesses within Wellington County.
That list will help in the next stage of interviewing businesses from the four key sectors to determine what the concerns and challenges are for small- to medium-sized businesses and to build upon the strengths.
While manufacturing is an important part of Wellington County, “we also want to be a breeding ground for new businesses,” Reichert said.
Councillor Ken Roth said he had concerns with the time frame of the project.
The goal is to have the 40 interviews in each of the seven municipalities to be completed before the end of the year.
“It’s a bit ambitious for places like Puslinch with the small staff we have here,” said Roth. He urged the proponents to get whatever information is needed to proceed to staff as quickly as possible.
Councillor Wayne Stokley agreed with Roth regarding the time frame. He noted there has been a large turnover of staff in recent months, which could make the tight deadline “… interesting for staff to be able to bring forward.” He said some are still getting used to their new positions and taking on the additional work could be onerous.
“I’m hoping there will be consideration of that.”
Councillor Susan Fielding shared those concerns but commended those involved for the work accomplished thus far. She said the end result will be very advantageous for the county and its member municipalities.
“We certainly have been blindsided by some factory closures such as in Fergus. It’s very hard on a community.”
While she said this group cannot prevent that from happening, “I think if we have some structures in place, the lines of communication might be open for something to be worked out in the future.”
Fielding added, “It is good to have the county out there in the larger world letting it know we are open for business.”
Mayor Dennis Lever added a separate business sector which could be considered for Puslinch is transportation – “It is a big sector we have here.”
Lever expressed more concern with the time frame to achieve the end result.
While he agreed there needs to be the information gathering and analysis, he said it is the actions and implementation which will achieve the end results – which could be a year from now.
“That is what I am looking forward to,” Lever said.
