The Plymouth Charter - Business Support Plymouth City Council is delivering a unique package of Covid-19 recovery support for local businesses and people, building on the Skills Launchpad Plymouth and the Plymouth Charter, through an ambitious two-year project. Drawing on a range of expertise from local government, enterprise and tourism in the UK and France, the project will support people at risk of exclusion from the labour market and businesses in their economic recovery. It is hoped that the insights and evidence gathered from both sides of the Channel will feed into local plans for Plymouth, to aid recovery and resilience planning, and to ensure measures are in place to support businesses and people adapt to future pandemics or economic shocks. The project will deliver the Plymouth Charter, with an aim to ‘build back better’ growing a prosperous economy that reduces inequality, is sustainable and truly serves the wellbeing of all the people of Plymouth. Using the purposeful activity of respond, reflect and report will enable partners, stakeholders and other FCE projects to review initial Covid-response, gather good practice and bring together lessons learnt in order to shape a new package of Covid-19 response and recovery actions.

More than 200 businesses will be supported with developing new business models, digital skills and the ability to recover in a resilient, green and sustainable way. Building on the lessons of the emergency to enable businesses and organisations to understand and implement new practices that make the city’s whole economy more resilient in the increasingly complex economic environment. It will provide businesses with new learning tools and mentoring to understand how their business environment is changing and how they can adapt to new ways of working.

The Plymouth Charter started as part of Plymouth’s Covid-19 Economic Recovery Programme, developed and co-created by Plymouth City Council and economic stakeholders in the private sector. As signatories to the Charter, businesses commit to a fairer, greener future for Plymouth. Visit their website here.

The Plymouth Charter, is free for businesses to sign up to and focuses on the SUCCEED themes which ask businesses to deliver one or more activities under the seven SUCCEED themes which are: Spend, Upskill, Collaborate, Community, Employ, Environment and Deliver. Activities under each theme will create a fairer and greener Plymouth.

The Charter was developed by the Inclusive Growth Group, a flagship of the Plymouth Growth Board, comprising representatives from Plymouth Social Enterprise Network, Real Ideas Organisation, Seetec Pluss, University of Plymouth, Devon and Plymouth Chamber of Commerce, Plymouth City Council and Plymouth Octopus Project. The challenges within the Charter have been created following collaboration with the wider business community to enable as many organisations as possible to see how they can commit.

The Plymouth Charter wants to see Plymouth as a beautiful place to live and work and emphasise why the city is the most significant economic centre in the southwest peninsula and the largest urban area in the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership.

More information is available at:

• The Plymouth Charter 

• Plymouth Supplier Directory