While there is always room for improvement, business people in Centre Wellington are happy for the most part, according to the results of a Business Retention and Expansion (BRE) survey.
Late last month, Centre Wellington’s economic development officer Pat Rutter presented the findings to council.
She also asked that council endorse a proposed action plan.
Rutter’s presentation focused on the Centre Wellington results following Wellington County’s BRE survey.
The program, in partnership with the county’s seven municipalities and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of Rural Affairs, visited 270 businesses across the county.
A total of 35 businesses were visited in Centre Wellington in the manufacturing, health care, creative and agricultural sectors.
Rutter noted the majority of new jobs within the municipality come from existing businesses and local growth. Therefore, she said the township needs programs to support that.
From a local perspective, Rutter said the survey results are being used as a means to identify and implement opportunities and actions to assist local businesses. Rutter noted that township staff conducted face-to-face interviews with businesses, ending in February.
Visits involved completion of a base survey asking for questions related to basic business information, local business climate, future plans, business and workforce development, and community development.
She noted the survey included both large and small businesses among the various categories.
“We had some pretty good results,” Rutter said, noting 82 per cent of businesses believed the township was a good or excellent place to do business.
In addition, the surveys indicate that 85% of the local businesses state their industry as a whole is either stable or growing.
“All in all the survey indicated we have a pretty stable business community in Centre Wellington.”
She said 66% of the businesses have been around for more than 10 years and 97% of the business owners were involved in the day-to-day activities of the business.
Rutter said the only surprise for her “was just how positive most of the businesses were especially in light of the financial upheavals in the past few years.”
Businesses were queried on various factors affecting their businesses, from roads to libraries and quality of life.
“Nobody is ever happy with taxes, and there are concerns with development charges,” she commented.
One of the concerns she did encounter was the availability of rentals for medium size industrial and commercial space.
Rutter noted that while the workforce is fairly stable in Centre Wellington, that is not the case throughout Wellington County.
“Some areas are having a great deal of trouble attracting a workforce.”
In Centre Wellington, the issues encountered depended on the type of business or industry.
One of the unique jobs fields where job applicants appear to be lacking is rock climbers, Rutter said.
Common concerns across Wellington County and Centre Wellington included the cost, reliability and access to utilities such natural gas and Internet services.
Rutter noted that since the results were released, the Wightman fibre optic project and Solo Wireless project have started up locally.
“They will both significantly assist in Internet access and cost.”
Another aspect of the survey was a look at issues businesses wanted the community to address within the next five years. In that, two areas came to the forefront: promoting the community and communicating with the business community.
“We’ve taken both of those seriously in terms of addressing those issues,” she said.
What’s next
Rutter said the BRE results were reviewed locally and an action plan developed to address those matters. She agreed the plans are “pretty ambitious”.
The priority projects include developing an investment profile and accompanying video to help promote the community.
While the existing community profile is comprehensive, Rutter said the intent is to have a profile that is business-focused.
Rutter also mentioned the creation of a shop local program to address downtown investment that would work alongside existing programs.
The last item was to create a comprehensive available space inventory and website tools to allow people to search of everything available within Centre Wellington.
She added a number of items are already being addressed in the action plan.
Rutter said the township’s new website includes added functions which provide clear contact information.
She added the “Do Business” section of the site includes information on business-related agencies, training, a business calendar and an online business directory which can be updated by the businesses listed.
Businesses will be able to link those listings with social media, videos, photos and a website to provide even more information – “it can be managed by them for free on the website now.”
Another item being developed is an online business Newsletter that Rutter hopes will be launched in the new year.
“The website will become a major communications tool,” she said.
Other items being worked on include pre-development consultations – where companies are looking at expansion or growth.
She used the example of the recent Nexans expansion where the consultation allowed industry representatives to meet with staff to walk through the process to address issues or potential issues.
“We can address it right at the beginning so they know what they are getting into, in addition to being able to provide cost estimates.”
Rutter said Nexans was actually one of the first companies to move through that process.
“We were happy they were able to launch their expansion,” said Rutter.
She added the Community Improvement Plan will be used to address issues involved in revitalizing the downtown areas.
Councillor Steven VanLeeuwen said one of the exciting things about this is to see there is an action plan that allows progress to be tracked.
“I’m looking forward to the committee continuing its work,” he said.
Councillor Kelly Linton found the idea of the online business directory interesting. He asked how the directory is kept up-to-date.
“Is it staff or do the businesses make changes?” Linton asked.
Rutter said the current setup allows businesses to update their online listings rather than staff.
She agreed it will require some work from the staff to make the business community aware the resource exists, and it should be updated regularly.
Rutter said one incentive to update the information would be that when items are being searched, the most recently updated items appear first.
