Why you should choose Worcester for your business

Introduction

The historic, cathedral city of Worcester has been a location for trade and commerce since Roman times. Today the city has a population of around 93,300 and is an excellent place to do business. More than 3.4 million trips to Worcester are made by tourists each year.

As the county town, Worcester is the main centre within Worcestershire for administrative services and jobs, shopping and tourism and the city council is committed to working with business and stakeholders to ensure its long-term continuing success .

Worcester is an excellent location at the heart of a beautiful county, with good connections by road and rail to Birmingham, the South West and London, it is an excellent location to live, work and visit.

Tourism in Worcester

For tourist information, please view the city of Worcester tourism website or visit the Tourist Information Centre at The Guildhall on Worcester High Street.

Worcester City Council adopted a tourism strategy in 2017. This strategy sets out to achieve the Council’s goals in relation to the economic growth and prosperity brought about by tourism development in the City of Worcester.  The strategy takes into account national trends, data, visitor surveys and stakeholder feedback.  It sets out aims and objectives to help cultivate a quality visitor experience; to raise the profile of Worcester as a visitor destination and to increase community engagement in the City’s arts; heritage and leisure activities, thus contributing to stronger and more connected communities. 

• pdf View the Worcester City Tourism Strategy (1.52 MB)

Business Profile

The city has a diverse and dynamic economy with a growing knowledge economy  reflecting Worcester's position as the county town.  There are about 3190 (ONS 2008) active businesses in the city with roughly 80% being small enterprises employing between 1 and 10 people.

Business by Industry

source ABI 2008

City Centre Masterplan

The Stage One Vision & Masterplan  for the City Centre was published in 2011.  It has a vision for "a bold Worcester, where sustained investment in economic development, aligned with successful advances in sustainable travel, lead to a vibrant and diverse city centre"

We reviewed progress against the Masterplan in 2013, and the outcome of that progress along with the future ambitions can be found on our City Centre Vision and Masterplan page

Jobs

The local economy is dynamic, with great flexibility in working and living arrangements.  68% of the workforce live and work in Worcester and the city has the highest level of in-commuting in the county. This is not surprising given that Worcester is the service and employment centre of the county.

 Source: ABI 2008

Current employment land supply

Employment land is spread geographically across the city with earlier established sites being closer to the city centre. Totalling approximately 250 ha at over 30 different locations, the employment sites vary in size with the largest being Shire Business Park on Warndon.  Businesses on Warndon represent a robust mix of employment uses with manufacturing being strongly represented. Examples of industries based here are Worcester Bosch, Yamazuki Mazak, Npower, CryoService and Royal Mail.

Worcester has both green and brown field sites that are vacant and allocated for employment.  Briefly these are:

• Grove Farm, Bromyard Road – an 11ha greenfield site owned by the University of Worcester. Plans are being formed to develop Phase I (approximately half the site) for a science/business park with the remainder of the site being utilised for the university's own use.
• Worcester Woods, Newtown Road – an 11ha greenfield site owned by Spetchley Estates. The site has outline planning permission for office and high tech uses although there are no firm plans for the site at present.
• High Point Business Park, Newtown Road – a 7.6ha brownfield site owned by Robert Hitchins. The site has outline planning permission for office and light industrial use and is currently being marketed.
• Apex 6 Phase II, Warndon – 2.7ha brownfield site in the ownership of A&J Mucklow. The site has outline planning permission for office/employment use and is currently being marketed.
• Great Western Business Park, Tolladine Road – Phase I of the brownfield development has been completed with 13 of the 18 new units occupied.

Worcester Bosch has recently been granted planning permission to expand onto a 30ha greenfield site adjacent to junction 6 of the M5 as Phase I of a new Worcester Technology Park. The expansion of WB will safeguard approximately 1250 jobs as well as create further employment opportunities. These jobs will be additional to any jobs that could be created on Phase II of the Worcester Technology Park.

Super-fast Broadband

First class and speedy digital infrastructure is essential in attracting and keeping cutting edge technological businesses. This is also essential to attract and service the creative industries. Super-fast fibre broadband covers most of Worcester. Further information can be found at www.superfastworcestershire.com