Manor Royal Business District is one of the largest business parks in the UK. It’s made up of about 600 businesses, home to about 30,000 people, and provides 9 million square feet of commercial floor space. It sits right underneath the runway of Gatwick Airport, so it’s superbly located in the heart of the Gatwick Diamond. In this interview, we speak to Manor Royal BID Company executive director Steve Sawyer. Steve reveals exciting plans for the future, including how:
- Manor Royal offers excellent connectivity and a unique role within the Gatwick Diamond region.
- Being part of a larger region gives Manor Royal access to diverse skills and expertise.
- The success of the Gatwick Diamond region is due to the distinct roles played by different towns in providing business opportunities and a high quality of life.
- Manor Royal focuses on maintaining a strong sense of community and organising events to improve the area as a place to trade and work.
Born and raised in Crawley, Steve has over twenty years of economic and BID development experience across the private and public sectors in disciplines ranging from finance and performance improvement to corporate policy and planning.
Steve has a Masters in psychological research, design and analysis. In what spare time he has while not watching the Reds (Crawley Town Football Club – but you knew that!), Steve can be found at the gym or running around after his three (triplets) sons.
Among many other priorities, Steve heads up the team that manages and delivers the Manor Royal Business Improvement District (BID). The BID seeks to create and enhance the Manor Royal area, which is renowned for its strong community and high-quality trading and working environment. We discuss the latest events and an exciting future for the area.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
Hi Steve. What Makes Manor Royal so unique?
Steve Sawyer
Manor Royal Business District is unique within the Gatwick Diamond, if nothing else, by virtue of its huge scale. There’s nowhere else quite as big or as diverse as the Manor Royal Business District.
Crawley is the single biggest economy of the Gatwick Diamond and the Manor Royal Business District is the single biggest business park of the Gatwick Diamond but also one of the biggest business parks in the South East.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
Is it important to collaborate with the larger region while maintaining Manor Royal’s strengths?
Steve Sawyer
Yeah, the key here is that Manor Royal sits at the heart of the Gatwick Diamond, right underneath that runway, with a superb motorway network on its doorstep. The Gatwick Diamond has almost unrivalled connectivity advantages. That’s another important thing; it’s easy for me to talk about Manor Royal in isolation.
It’s easy for me to talk about Manor Royal in isolation, but it’s also important to understand how the whole region operates. And the advantages that each of those different towns across the Gatwick Diamond collectively contribute to what is one of the most successful economic regions in the country, outperforming a number of major cities.
And each of them performs a slightly distinct and different role in terms of providing suppliers, a business environment, places to live, as well as great places to work.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
What are the main issues businesses in Manor Royal are focusing on?
Steve Sawyer
Well, as we sit here today, we’ve just come off the back of a people conference. We’ve also come off at the back of a re-election, for want of a better word, for the Manor Royal BID. So what we’re focusing on in Manor Royal is to make sure that Manor Royal remains this really exciting place to be, looking at superb infrastructure, investing in facilities, investing in the environment, investing in building a superb community that’s well connected with itself and with those around it.
And in that way, we’re making sure that Manor Royal remains robust and exciting and hopefully profitable for the people who want to come to work here.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
How crucial is the sense of community in Manor Royal, considering the diversity of companies and your active events?
Steve Sawyer
The sense of community in Manor Royal is a huge part of what we do. We’re basically a community of interest. The Manor Royal Business Improvement District is invested in by the businesses of the Manor Royal Business District and their expectation is that we collectively look to improve the area as a place to trade and to work.
So it’s that united spirit, that one mission to ensure that Manor Royal succeeds. We’re all invested in it and it’s important that we all play our role. And the Manor Royal BID at the heart of that is the glue that hopefully brings all that together.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
How do you see things for Manor Royal BID at the moment?
Steve Sawyer
It’s important to say that the Manor Royal BID is the largest industrial BID in the UK. That’s the largest business improvement district that operates in a business park environment. It is celebrating its 10th year. It was created in 2013 when Manor Royal wasn’t in such a good place. And so attention was needed. And now Manor Royal has passed that 10-year mark. It’s been voted for by businesses three times.
So we’ve got a very exciting mission over the next five years. We work in five-year terms. We’ve got an incredible amount of investment coming into Manor Royal over the next five years, both from the BID and from the private sector.
And we are looking to see a very changed, brighter, more connected, more exciting place to come and work in the future over these next five years. We’re really excited about that.
We’re focused on sustainability. We’re focused on connectivity. We’re focused on improved facilities. We’re focusing on building a very strong community where we can all succeed. So yeah, we’re really excited about the next five years.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
What do you think you can achieve in that time?
Steve Sawyer
We’ve already achieved a huge amount in Manor Royal. And that’s the important thing, and that is all built on this idea of this community of interest where we’re all invested in a better future for Manor Royal. And importantly, one where the Manor Royal companies are invested in it and they’re running the show.
So they’re creating the kind of place that they want to see. And that’s the kind of place where other businesses want to invest in and their staff will want to come and work in. In the next five years we’ll have an incredible amount of money coming into Manor Royal, of the kind we’ve never seen before.
We’ll have a new innovation centre, we’ll be more sustainable, we’ll have better facilities, it will look better, and it will be more digitally enabled. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and there’s so much more to come.
So my message would be to companies right here and now is come in, come and have a look and see what you can get out of Manor Royal because it’s a great place to be right at the heart of the Gatwick Diamond.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
We’ve heard a lot about the new Crawley Innovation Centre. Should we be excited?
Steve Sawyer
Absolutely we should be excited. 100%, we should be excited. So the cutting edge of looking at bringing into Manor Royal excellent companies who are doing excellent things to build the technologies and services of the future and repurposing a building that was otherwise empty and packing it with companies who are doing really exciting things right in the middle of Manor Royal.
So not only would it be a facility where the tenants of that Innovation Centre benefit, it would be a kind of place where the whole of the business district will benefit. And even better than that, you’d hope that those companies from the Innovation Centre will grow, expand and perhaps even go to take up residence in other parts of the Gatwick Diamond. And perhaps even build a supply chain across other parts of the Gatwick Diamond.
So we have every reason and many reasons to be excited by the Innovation Centre in Manor Royal.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
Innovation can be contagious, can’t it? And it’s so important to bring that through in an area’s culture.
Steve Sawyer
Well, absolutely. Yeah, it’s a big statement because not only will it bring forward this new innovation centre, this new exciting brand new funky attractive space for companies, but you think about the support that sits behind that with university partners and other business support partners. Everybody benefits from that.
So it’s a statement, but also it’s something very practical in terms of providing a great space where collaboration takes place, where the benefits are spread more widely as well. So yeah, it’s a really exciting thing.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
Which upcoming events should we focus on?
Steve Sawyer
So, the Manor Royal BID organises many events of different kinds for the benefit of the Manor Royal business community. And it’s also a good way, if you’re looking to come and invest in Manor Royal, a good way to kind of get a feel for what we are doing and also who your neighbours might be. If I had to pick out one and only one, I would say come along to the Manor Royal BID ‘Know Your Neighbour’ event.
It’s our biggest event of the year. We have stacks of companies there and we also share some really exciting plans at that event as well for what we’re going to be doing in the future in the next financial year. So come along to that one. It’s a good one.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
Is there anything about sustainability that Manor Royal is doing that we can learn from?
Steve Sawyer
Sustainability has become such an important issue for us, and we’ve always as a BID, we’ve always been doing stuff around that space. But what we’ve seen through doing our surveys and interacting with businesses is that we’ve started to see it becoming increasingly important to companies in Manor Royal and not only to their companies but to their staff as well.
So we asked ourselves a question, what can the Manor Royal BID do to improve the performance of the area in terms of sustainability? And so we’re looking at how we build parks and other facilities. What materials do we use? What’s the carbon footprint of that? How do we maintain the area?
Because of what Manor Royal does, as well as designing and creating new spaces, we also look after the space. So we’re looking at our maintenance team and asking ourselves how we can make it more biodiverse in terms of the way we plant and in terms of the way we manage the area.
And the other aspect of it is how do we, as a BID support other companies, our companies in Manor Royal, how do we support them in their net zero journey? So we’ve got an action plan that was put together by an expert consultancy in sustainability that’s published on our website as part of our own business plan, and we’ll be looking to take that forward over the next five years in those three areas.
So we’re expecting Manor Royal to not only be a better, sparklier, more diverse and more productive place in the future, but one with a smaller carbon footprint as well.
Invest Gatwick Diamond
Why should companies invest in or relocate to the Gatwick Diamond region, including Manor Royal? What benefits can they expect?
Steve Sawyer
So, if you’re a company looking to invest in an area, I think the Gatwick Diamond would be a great choice. It’s crammed with businesses, something like 45,000 businesses. It’s home to an international airport. It’s home to one of the country’s biggest business parks. It has an economy that’s larger than Birmingham, Liverpool, or Leeds’ economy.
And you’ll find you’re landing not just in a great space, whether that’s in Crawley, hopefully, it’ll be in Manor Royal, but it might be in one of the surrounding towns, but you’ll be landing in a community. So you won’t find yourself alone, you’ll find yourself next to some neighbours and you’ll find yourself within a very supportive community. And that in itself is something very valuable.
So come along, come to the Gatwick Diamond, see what you can find, and it’s definitely a great choice for your company.