Decision details

An important requirement has been identified to continue to promote the Golden Valley scheme to the Cyber Sector, central government, academia and the wider Cheltenham and Gloucestershire community at least until we have a development partner on board. To date Marketing Cheltenham have been performing this function having been redeployed to assist in marcomms for the project from their usual business in March 2020 due to the impact of National Lockdown due to the Covid19 Pandemic.

As the town came out of Lockdown, Marketing Cheltenham needed to return to their previous tasks. After six months, and now with the dual task of their usual business increasing and continuing to support the project, staffing resources were proving to be significantly challenged.

It was decided, following consultation, that additional resource should be procured until the end of March 2021 to bolster the marcomms offering from Marketing Cheltenham with specific focus on the Golden Valley Development project.

It was decided that the successful candidate would work within the Marketing Cheltenham team, not only to enable a smooth handover of assets and information but to enable the sharing of information and contribution to Marketing Cheltenham’s post-Covid recovery programme ‘We’re Moving to Cheltenham’.

·         Procurement of an external, specialist, full-time resource for PR and Marketing for the Golden Valley project – rejected due option to utilise spare capacity with Marketing Cheltenham.

·         Using existing CBC Communications resource – rejected due to lack of internal capacity, focus is on responding to Covid needs.

·         Recruit additional Internal resource – rejected as nature of requirement is relatively short term (c6 months)

It was confirmed that internal resource was not available to deliver the requirements to support the Golden Valley programme and therefore it was agreed to commission a piece of work to last for a period of 6 months to promote the development to commercial, academic and community stakeholders. It was also agreed that a shift in focus was required to ensure we were engaging more with the wider community and sharing information on the scheme and the benefits and opportunities that will arise from it.

Golden Valley Programme Manager

Managing Director Marketing Cheltenham

Executive Director of People & Change

Strategy and Engagement Manager

MD Place and Growth