Manchester City Council today announces a major upgrade of its ICT facilities, awarding a long-term contract to hosting firm UKFast.

The upgrade sees UKFast hosting the Council’s servers across two separate sites, including two new data centre facilities created especially by the firm.

Through the long-term colocation deal UKFast is set to provide greater service availability and resilience for the Council’s ICT infrastructure and critical services while bringing cost savings and efficiencies.

As part of the package, UKFast has committed to contribute 2.5% of the contract’s value back into the Council’s Social Value Fund, which is made up of contributions from the Council’s partners and supply chain. The fund helps local people through work experience and apprenticeship opportunities to improve their skills and offer a route to the jobs market.

UKFast’s focus on the community played a key part in securing the deal. The firm works with more than 60,000 children and young people, across more than 50 schools and universities in the region.

Cllr Carl Ollerhead, Manchester City Council’s executive member for finance and human resources, said: “UKFast are experts in their field that can offer the Council state of the art, highly secure data storage – using industry-leading technology – which we simply could not deliver on our own. This represents a major upgrade to the Council’s current data storage, meaning increased production and resilience for our residents’ data.

“A key factor for choosing UKFast was their commitment to the city, including a promise to engage local schools to unlock training programmes to empower the next generation. I’ve also been impressed by their standing in the community, inviting local young people to use their sports and technical facilities for free.”

The Council’s choice to sign a multi-year deal with a local firm enables further investment into the local area by the hosting firm.

UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones said: “Winning such an important contract inspired us to build an entirely new facility with increased resilience, specialised toward government hosting and machine learning. The investment also brings further connectivity options to the region.

“It’s reassuring to hear how much the leaders in the Council value our contribution to the community and I am looking forward to teaming up with them on future initiatives.”

University of Manchester spin-out Fotenix is eyeing growth after launching earlier this year.

Co-founded by Professor Bruce Grieve, Director of e-Agri Sensors Centre at the University, and Dr Charles Veys, the company offers a new online crop analysis tool, that aims to help improve yield quality and shelf life significantly.

Fotenix’s technology is the result of four years of hard work that Veys carried out during his PhD at the e-Agri Sensors Centre.

Veys describes his technology as a modern M.O.T for crops, following recent research field trips to Canada, China and multiple European countries.

“Our technology looks at the ripeness of fruits on the plants,” said Veys. “Fotenix’s ultimate aim is to increase efficiency in the agri-food industry across the world.

“We want to instil sustainable models, rather than intensive models which is an industry drive.”

He added: “With our technology, producers and agronomists can identify plant characteristics earlier in the season, well before they become visible to even the sharpest agricultural eye.

“This real-time information means that appropriate action can be made sooner and better informed, particularly when paired with the latest machinery – a huge advantage that will improve agricultural production efficiency and reduce its environmental footprint.

“Essentially, it’s a lifeline for the producer in realising what level the crop is at, and when to act.”

Fotenix, based at The University of Manchester Innovation Centre (UMIC), is now on the brink of scaling up operations and is looking to increase headcount.

Veys, also a food editor for a small independent magazine in Manchester, has been supported by the University’s Innovation Company, UMI3 Ltd, and its Innovation Optimiser initiative during his leap from the academic to the commercial world.

“When you spend four years on something you don’t want to just stop and park that on a shelf,” said Veys.

“I wanted to get it all out there and get my technology working in the field and we are getting closer to achieving that with each day that passes.”

He added: “Our work with the patent office is ongoing and we have received early-stage funding from The University of Manchester as well as lining up VCs for the next stage of seed funding.

“Being someone who is used to the technical arena and moving into the commercial arena has been quite a challenge. As you are suddenly in China, Canada and other countries on the ground while also going out and meeting with software developers and machine manufacturers.

“But that’s been very enjoyable, and become the next stage of education for me, and Fotenix is very close to becoming a scalable operation.

“Our aim is to soon be an OEM supplier to large farming manufacturers, looking to enhance their product offer. The industry has previous for this and it allows us to concentrate on what we are good at.”

“At present the large manufacturers use cameras on field machinery to look identify areas to apply fertiliser or herbicide and even when to harvest horticultural produce.”

“Our idea is to enhance this with our technology. We look at many different colours beyond the human eye – in some ways similar to night vision but with more colour.”

Property consultants Bruton Knowles has appointed a key industry figure, to be based from its Manchester office, to head up a new Utility Team as it plans for major expansion into the sector over the next 12 months. 

Chris Gaskell was Head of Estates and Wayleaves at Electricity North West for 20 years. He decided to take early retirement in January 2018 but was persuaded to return to the sector by James Bailey, Managing Partner at Bruton Knowles with an offer clearly too good to turn down.

“I was determined not to return unless the role and the business was just right, offered me new challenges and an opportunity to utilise my specialist knowledge within the utility sector. Bruton Knowles is one of the few firms with the ability to offer this”.

James Bailey has a clear vision for the Utility Team at Bruton Knowles: “This has been some time in the planning but key to its launch was finding the right person to spearhead the campaign and to expand our team with knowledgeable and industry respected individuals.

“The utility sector is a fast growing business area for Bruton Knowles, representing a large percentage of business income nationwide.

“Current clients, including some long-term relationships with Western Power Distribution, National Grid, Cadent Gas and Thames Water has brought a level of knowledge and experience of the sector to the business that is in great demand and certainly driving the need to source and establish a dedicated team.

“We are now actively recruiting with the intention of building a significant team around Chris. This will also impact on our annual graduate recruitment programme. Candidate intake will be influenced by the need to attract and build talent within the business.”

Chris Gaskell continued: ”The utility sector is a challenging market at the moment as it continues to change and evolve at pace.

“It is vital that utility companies are able to outsource the efficient and cost-effective acquisition of often complex land rights and planning and environmental consents for the development of new systems and networks, to firms like Bruton Knowles which has the resources and skills to support them in their plans.”

TeamSport Indoor Karting, has successfully completed its acquisition of Daytona’s Manchester circuit.

Located within the well-known Trafford Park industrial estate, and just a short drive from Manchester’s city centre, Daytona is one of the city’s oldest leisure attractions. Visited by residents and visitors, the site features a 450m indoor track, a licensed bar, a children’s party area and meeting facilities.

TeamSport was established in 1992 and has tracks across the UK.  The company’s success has been focused on installing multi-level karting tracks along with exceptional customer facilities and service.

Dominic Gaynor, Managing Director of TeamSport Karting said; “We’re delighted to have finalised the acquisition of Daytona.  Manchester is a thriving city with so much to offer people looking for a fun activity to do.  Karting is a great option and appeals to so many people; families can race together, it’s a great place to celebrate an occasion such as a birthday or stag do and the perfect activity for socialising or teambuilding with colleagues.”

“Our range of offers such as half price mid-week karting, discounts for students and our exclusive Grid membership have proved very popular with karting fans. Our new Cadet Academy provides expert tuition for budding F1 stars, so you never know, the next Lewis Hamilton could be from Manchester.”

Castlefield Recruitment, which has offices in Manchester and Leeds, has reached the £5m turnover mark ahead of plan.

The company is forecasting growth that would increase revenues by 50% in 2019 based on hiring additional consultants to service increased client demand.

Castlefield’s core business focusses on supplying finance, procurement and housing staff from entry level up to £80,000 salary, in both public and private sectors.

Andrew Davison, co-founder and director along with Nick Ogden and Chris Oldfield, said: “We are a rapidly-expanding recruitment business and our growth up to now has been achieved by sticking to the sectors and job roles we know well and providing a first-class service.

“Companies and public sector organisations need more and more from the people they hire while being faced with ever-tighter recruitment budgets. So, for us, that means finding quality people, working as partners and flexing in a way most recruitment firms won’t when it comes to delivering value and cost savings.

“Our success is founded on building and maintaining long-term relationships, achieved by delivering high quality candidates who make a difference, which leads to a high level of repeat business for us.”

Within the public sector Castlefield is a leading supplier of staff to the NHS, education and housing associations. This includes finance, procurement, project management and transformation, as well as teams providing housing management, asset management, repairs and maintenance.

Within the private sector the business counts Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Drax Power Group and Card Factory among its clients, placing permanent, contract and interim positions at all levels of finance with clients ranging from SMEs to multinationals and FTSE-listed companies.

The company was founded, originally, in the spare bedroom of a Castlefield apartment in Manchester and is now based in long-term leased offices in city centre Manchester and Leeds.  It currently employs 28 staff across both locations and with growth forecasts aims to have 40 staff by the end of next year.

Davison added: “We’ve all experienced recruitment consultancies that care only about the bottom line, which is why we wanted to run things differently in our own business: that involves offering no ceiling on commission for the work staff put in, investing in them through training and trusting them to work independently.

“As well as reinvesting profits in the business and the team, we’ve made a long-term commitment to our offices in Manchester and Leeds aligned with the growth and investment they are both experiencing.”