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Miri and Stephen discuss an award-winning law firm, devolution for Cheshire and Warrington and Manchester's development pipeline.

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00:00Devolution in Cheshire, Manchester property market, manufacturing growth and success at

00:05award-winning law firm, all coming up in today's Daily Business Briefing.

00:15Hi, I'm Mary Thomas. I'm Stephen Favell.

00:18And Stephen, I know today you have spotted a story from an award-winning law firm in

00:22the North East. Yeah, that's right. So we've got the results

00:24for Muckle, very well-named in the legal sector in the North East and familiar from

00:30last week's Dealmakers Awards, of course. They won several awards there. Corporate

00:36Finance Law Firm of the Year being, I guess, the big one. Now, they've had a really strong

00:41year in their last financial results. Turnover and profits have both grown. Turnover to £17

00:47million of 4.5%, profits of 11% to £4.2 million. And so they've said areas like agriculture,

00:55rural estates, private client services have all contributed to that. The corporate team

01:00as well reported record turnover with an 11% jump. And there are various of the public

01:05sector appointments, both regionally and nationally, that contributed to that growth.

01:10Now, they've also said the current year is looking like another period of growth again.

01:14So really strong 2024, 2025 for them. So yeah, good to see an award-winning law firm doing well.

01:22Very good. And so over in the North West, one of the stories I saw today was about

01:28Cheshire and Warrington and the news that devolution in the area will happen sooner

01:33rather than later. Now, we spoke with Gemma Davis of the Cheshire West and Chester Council,

01:38and she told us that although conversations with government were at an early stage,

01:43there was definitely an appetite there to accelerate devolution talks, particularly

01:47in the North. So I think we can expect to see some changes there. And Mayor, I'm not sure,

01:53she did say it was about getting devolution right for the people of the local area.

01:58What else have you spotted today? Well, in Yorkshire, we've got more

02:01financial results. It's time for manufacturer Gripple. Again, a name that might be familiar

02:06from our awards. Earlier this year, they were nominated in three categories, I believe,

02:10in the Made in Sheffield Awards. They were also winner of the King's Award for Enterprise earlier

02:15this year. Again, those award wins are backed up by their financial results, where

02:22for the 2023 year, they reported growth in turnover and profit. They were boosted by

02:29a number of new product launches. They're also continuing to invest in their South Yorkshire

02:33facilities. Now, they've got seven facilities in South Yorkshire at the moment, so

02:37a big name in the region, and they employ about 950 staff worldwide. They've said that further

02:45growth is on the cards from 2024 or 2025, more investment in South Yorkshire and more new

02:51products. And did you say seven sites in South Yorkshire alone?

02:54Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So they've expanded fairly significantly over the last few years.

03:00Real success story for South Yorkshire. Wow. Okay. And then over on our investment

03:05hub newsletter today, we are carrying a story from another event that we held this week,

03:10this time in London. So here we took the Greater Manchester team to London to talk

03:15about the investment opportunities there. And we were told by our investment agent panel that

03:20Manchester has a much thinner development pipeline than any other regional city. And what that means

03:26is that there are fewer new developments coming forward, particularly in residential actually.

03:32So there was a worry a couple of years ago that there'd be an oversupply of apartments and that

03:39we're coming to the market and nobody's going to live in there. But that has not been the case. I

03:43mean, we can see that these are really well let apartments. It's the same with office space as

03:48well. I think there's a real dearth of new office space coming to the market. There's a couple of

03:53buildings that are nearly finished, a couple that are letting well. And I think after that,

03:59who knows what's next. So what the panel were telling us is that this is a real opportunity

04:05and that Manchester was moving into its next cycle. So we can see, we can expect hopefully

04:11lots more investment in the city. We're following up that event actually with the next one for the

04:17East Midlands. So that's again taking the East Midlands story to London and then Yorkshire

04:21back in talking about Yorkshire and that will be in December as well. So that will be taking the

04:27Yorkshire message to London as well. Good to see these places getting a bit of a promotion.

04:32Exactly. So if you want to read about these stories or anything else, head over to our

04:36website, insidermedia.com and we'll be back tomorrow with some more business news.

Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 3rd October

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