Nottingham council pulls out of MIPIM 2011

 

Nottingham council has pulled out of sponsoring the city’s presence at next year’s MIPIM, blaming a lack of cash and resources.

 

Announcing the decision,  Jon Collins, Nottingham council leader, said: “Despite the need to showcase the city’s regeneration and development opportunities to encourage investment, the resource and funding is just not available…….We have therefore regrettably decided that Nottingham council will not attend MIPIM in 2011.

 

Companies in the city are now trying to put an alternative funding package together for the event, which takes place in Cannes in the second week of March next year.

 

There are six main sponsors of Nottingham at the annual event. Tim Garratt, director of Innes England – one of the main sponsors – confirmed that talks are now taking place between the other sponsors to press ahead without the council.

 

Garratt believed the recent Comprehensive Spending Review is bound to have had an effect on the council’s decision.

 

He said: “I do understand the sensitivities around a spend on a yacht when jobs are being threatened; but the marketing of the city needs to go on. In times of recession it could be argued that we should be prepared to market harder – one day the market will return and the city needs to be ready to take those opportunities that present themselves.”

 

Garratt added: “We need to make sure the world doesn’t think we are closed for business. That would be a disaster.”

 

Nottingham council was criticised in the local press last year when, as a result of a Freedom of Information request, it emerged that at 2008’s MIPIM event, Michael Frater, the then chief executive of Nottingham council, spent £20,000 entertaining potential investors on board Powder-Monkey, a 100ft vessel moored in Cannes.

 

lisa.pilkington@estatesgazette.com

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