Bolton Development Plans 2015

FOUR of Bolton’s leading development figures will be presenting their development/investment plans for the next couple of years!

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Event Format

• 1530 – 1600; Registration
• 1600 – 1645; Networking with Wine, Beer and Soft Drinks
• 1645 – 1815; Speaker Presentations
• 1815 – 1900; Networking with Hot Food, Wine, Beer and Soft Drinks
• 1930 – 2200; After Event Dinner (INVITE ONLY)

Speakers

Professor George Holmes; Vice Chancellor, The University of Bolton

When appointed Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University, Professor Holmes became the youngest Head of any UK University. He has been Vice Chancellor at the University for ten years this year. As an academic he edited two International Journals for almost ten years. In 2002 he was appointed by the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills as advisor; becoming a member of the Department’s HE Policy Delivery Steering Group preparing the HE White Paper. George is on the Board of the Bolton Lads and Girls Club; and is a Governor of both Bolton School and Wakefield Grammar School Foundation as well as the BWFC Free School and the University Technical College Bolton. Prior to joining the University, Dr Holmes was Principal of Doncaster College for five years where he also established the Doncaster Education City Project, of which he became Chief Executive. In this post he secured the largest capital grant in the history of the FE sector and had responsibility for building a new £75m College on the Waterfront.

George was previously Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of North London (now the London Metropolitan University).

Iain Thomson; Partnerships Manager, Harworth Estates

Iain Thomson joined Harworth Estates as Partnerships Manager in September 2013 with responsibility for communications, strategic partnerships and the company’s input into public policy matters.  Iain has held a number of policy and service improvement roles in both the private and public sectors and previously worked at Doncaster Council.  He also holds a non-Executive Director position at Flying Futures CIC, a Doncaster-based Social Enterprise that delivers sports, arts and diversionary programmes for young people.

Keith Davies; Director of Development & Regeneration; Bolton Council

Keith is Director of Development and Regeneration with Bolton Council and has responsibility for the preparation and delivery of the major development and investment programme for the borough which amounts to £1billion. This has included major schemes such as the Bolton Innovation Zone which has seen the development of new Colleges and the expansion of the University of Bolton and the location of Bolton One as a state of the art leisure, health and research centre. With other initiatives such as a major new Transport Interchange underway this programme has seen over £250m of investment in Bolton town centre. He is also leading on other transformational projects such as Logistics North and Rivington Chase which are projected to create thousands of new jobs and houses in Bolton. His other responsibilities include, housing services, planning services, economic development, Business Bolton services, tourism and leisure.

He led the development of the highly successful brand strategy for Bolton and has been at the heart of positioning Bolton and the Greater Manchester region on a national and international stage at investment events and overseas business missions. He is also a lead Director involved in the work at Greater Manchester level to develop economic development, planning, housing, inward investment and visitor economy activity.

Before joining Bolton in May 2002, he was an Assistant Director in Liverpool and, amongst other things, was a lead member of the team which established the Liverpool Culture Company and which successfully bid for Liverpool to be European Capital of Culture 2008.

Peter Boulton; Head of Programme Management Services, Transport for Greater Manchester