The Suffolk Show – a local event for a local economy

Approximately 90,000 people attend the Suffolk Show every year. As well as being an agricultural show, many plant hire, food manufacturers and service providers exhibit at the show, taking advantage of the perfect opportunity to connect with their customer base and to demonstrate innovative technological ideas and developments. EDF Energy had two stands this year, one looking at the various educational aspects that can be learnt from a nuclear power station, headed up by a team from Sizewell B.  The second exhibition area enabled EDF to promote the plans that have been the subject of Sizewell C’s third round of socio-economic consultation.

The Suffolk Chamber, has for the last 5 years hosted an evening reception for EDF Energy where key local stakeholders listened to Sizewell C’s Site Director, Jim Crawford explain how the last planned consultation phase was going and what the potential timetable was looking like in relation to a ‘Design Consent Order’ submission date which would be linked to a Final Investment Decision (FID) being made.

There are currently 1,285 companies with published contact and related data on the Chambers EDF Supply Chain Portal www.sizewellcsupplychain.co.uk . EDF will encourage Tier 1 & 2 companies to connect with this platform when looking to find local suppliers, supporting EDF’s strategy of using a local supply chain and also to optimise the cost of entering into such a large project; often referred to as ‘bigger than the Olympics’.

The Suffolk Chamber Supply Chain Team, headed up by Miles Vartan and Angela Silburn are encouraging local businesses to register on the SZC Supply Chain Portal, making sure that they include financial information, relevant case studies and optimise key words. If the project goes ahead, approximately 60% of the value of contracts could go to local and regional businesses – this will be  difficult to achieve if companies do not position themselves correctly and, when assessed do come up to the required standards – the Chamber will be working with companies over the next couple of years to facilitate these standards and improvements.

The Suffolk Show is always in the last week of May on the Wednesday and Thursday – the timing is predictable and assured. The UK needs a reliable and predictable baseload supply of energy; the ongoing development of Nuclear as a feature in this supply is essential; let us maximise the local benefits.