Latest round of Grow Local campaign launched

Orange-based business Wangarang Industries had so much success using funding from Orange City Council’s Grow Local campaign, they had more work coming than they could handle.

The ‘Grow Local’ program aims to help businesses who want to expand or who are affected by other businesses downsizing and is jointly funded by the NSW Department of Industry and the Council.

The latest round of funding for the campaign is now underway.

General Manager of Wangarang Industries, Kevin McGuire, said that the funding has been used as a part of a marketing campaign to target additional work for the staff directly-affected by the Electrolux closure.

“The majority of the community have heard about Wangarang Industries, but not everyone is aware of what we do, this funding has helped us fix that,” said Mr McGuire.

“Since August last year, the extra marketing to attract work for our gardening teams was so successful we were approached for more work that we could handle and we had to scale back the advertising.”

“We’re gearing up to meet that extra demand and switching our advertising to our commercial cleaning services. For a business like ours, it’s a great position to be in and this funding gave us the confidence to tackle this promotional work more seriously.”

Orange City Council's Economic Development Committee chair Cr Jeff Whitton said the goal of the Grow Local program is to support business to deliver jobs creation or protect existing jobs in the Orange area.

“The program offers financial assistance in the form of small seed-funding grants to businesses to let them explore new directions or support them as they grow,” Cr Jeff Whitton said.

Since the program was launched in August last year five local businesses are benefitting from the grants scheme, including Wangarang Industries.

Cr Jeff Whitton believes one of the best ways to grow the local economy is to work with the companies we already have.

“These companies have already set up here and shown faith in the local economy,” Cr Jeff Whitton said. “We should do everything we can to try and help them grow.”

“These small, targeted grants can deliver strategies like a better business plan, more equipment or improved marketing. Any business can benefit from a shot in the arm like this.”

The Grow Local program has a number of levels of assistance, from small sole traders just starting out in the world of business to larger businesses who want to boost their presence in the Orange region.

“If a medium to large business is interested in moving their head office to Orange and want to look at buying council property to do that, then this scheme can offer some support which could make that re-location proposal more viable for them, if it will bring more jobs to Orange.”

There is limited funding available for this program. If companies want to find out more about this program or apply for funding they should contact Orange City Council on 6393 8000.