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The Committee received and considered the report from the Renewables Marketing Manager.
The Renewable Marketing Manager reported that the report provided Members with an update on the Norfolk & Suffolk Offshore Wind Competitive Positioning Programme. The project sought to develop and deploy a coherent, co-ordinated and collectively owned brand, offer, an identity and marketing strategy to complement other strategic and capital initiatives and drive energy sector investment.
The Chairman thanked the Renewables Marketing Manager for her excellent, in-depth and informative report and highlighted the five themes on page 67 of the report, which Generate would achieve whilst delivering the Council's vision.
Councillor Candon highlighted the potential that this project had for Great Yarmouth.
Councillor A Wright voiced his concerns that the Council would not have both a physical presence and a stand at all of the major conferences and exhibitions as, in his view, this was a requirement for all events and the Council should not adopt a cherry-picking attitude. The Renewables Marketing Manager reported that a strategic decision would be taken on an event by event basis and would be dependant on costings to achieve both value for money and speculative economic return. Councillor Wright urged the Committee to ask officers to re-look at this proposal and to bring it back for endorsement.
Councillor Price reported that a measured approach should be adopted when attending events. Councillor Mogford reported that he favoured a direct approach to companies to bring business in.
The Head of Inward Investment reported that the attendance at energy events would be constantly monitored and evaluated on an on-going basis and that following the first event, the resulting targeted and business enquires would be evaluated.
Councillor Cordiner-Achenbach asked for confirmation regarding where the Council was with the agreement in terms of the stakeholders and the accompanying element of risk this carried. The Renewables Marketing Manager reported that all stakeholders were on board and bi-weekly and monthly meetings were timetabled with them.
Councillor C Walker asked if consideration had been given to sharing the costs of attending events with local companies who might be willing to help with the cost of providing a stand in return for their attendance.
The Chairman reported that he had experience of attending energy events in the past but he had no experience of what a digital offer would look like.
Councillor Wainwright asked if there was an update on the ongoing review with the onshore connection points in relation to Vattenfall in North Norfolk. If the review was not concluded shortly, he was concerned that Vattenfall would move their major, national significant infrastructure project to elsewhere in the country. The Chairman reported that the Government was being lobbied hard by the LEP, NCC and the energy industries as this infrastructure was needed across England and not just Norfolk.
The Director of Planning & Growth reported that this was being discussed with Vattenfall this Thursday and that the MP was briefed.Meanwhile, the required Development Consent Order was being considered at national level.
RESOLVED:-
That the Committee:-
(i) Review and comment upon and support the proposed marketing strategy, framework
and supporting activity to launch and embed the new brand into the wider energy sector;
and
(ii) Endorse the launch of the strategy allowing officers to begin to focus on individual energy projects.