Bicester Vision

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A business focused partnership made up of public and private sector partners.

29/10/2026

Five organisations are speaking at our partnership meeting next Thursday. Swipe for what each of them is bringing.

Mark Vingoe, The Engineering Trust, on getting young people into engineering careers through apprenticeships and internships.

Penny Grobler, Siemens Healthineers, on the apprenticeship routes inside a major employer and what happens to people once they are in.

James Gilpin, Department for Work and Pensions, on the employment support available to employers that most businesses never think to ask about.

Melanie Ringer, Enterprise Oxfordshire, on skills funding, apprenticeship opportunities and upskilling the staff you already have.

Sarah James, Oxfordshire County Council, on Thrive at Work Oxfordshire, plus a free Workplace Health MOT for local employers.

Creating opportunity for the next generation. Thursday 5 November, doors from 12.45pm, 1pm to 3pm, The Littlebury Hotel, Bicester.

Free to attend, and you do not need to be a Bicester Vision partner to come.

Booking link in the comments.

14/10/2026

Meet the team: Maia Laws, our Executive Assistant.

Maia keeps Bicester Vision organised. Agendas, minutes and actions out on time, members kept in the loop, the logistics behind every meeting and workshop, and the systems that hold the whole operation together.

She brings a background in operations, recruitment and business support, and five years providing high level executive support to business owners in the UK and internationally, including clients in Vietnam, South Africa and Croatia. Her work spans AI implementation, systems build-outs, launch strategy, PR support and process optimisation.

Papers, bookings or membership questions? Maia is your first port of call. Email [email protected].

09/10/2026

Creating opportunity for the next generation.

Our next partnership meeting is on Thursday 5 November, 1pm to 3pm, at The Littlebury Hotel in Bicester.

We are bringing together local employers, training providers and local authority organisations to talk about how businesses here are developing young people and existing staff. Training routes, apprenticeships, funding, and what has genuinely worked for the organisations in the room.

If you employ people in or around Bicester, this one is worth two hours of your afternoon. Free to attend.

Book your place: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creating-opportunity-for-the-next-generation-tickets-2003205608901?aff=oddtdtcreator

07/10/2026

Meet the team: Grae Laws, our Business Manager.

Grae runs Bicester Vision day to day. That means turning the board's priorities into actual programmes, keeping the Partnership Meetings, workshops and networks running through the year, and working with councils and partners to keep it all funded. He also holds the finances, from the P&L and budgets through to forecasting and the reporting the board relies on.

He came to it the long way round: over twenty years in print and publishing, then advanced manufacturing, before setting up his own consultancy, Beyond Touch Ltd, in 2013 supporting small and medium sized businesses. Alongside Bicester Vision he delivers mentoring, coaching and training for the Royal Academy of Engineering, universities and council-backed business support programmes across the UK. A growing part of that is AI, helping businesses work out where it actually fits and training their teams to use it properly rather than just talk about it. Outside work he is an artist and a grandparent.

If your business is after support, a connection or a way into the programme, Grae is the person to ask. Email [email protected].

30/09/2026

Meet the team: James Hill, our Vice Chairperson.

James supports the Chair and brings a property and development perspective to how Bicester grows. He is also active across the Town Centre Task Group, the Bicester Developer Forum and the Bicester Area Oversight Group.

He is CEO of Adalta Real, the commercial property agency and development company he founded in 2009, working across the Midlands and acting for landlords and tenants in and around Bicester. He has supported Bicester Vision through his company for over twelve years, eight of those on the Executive Board.

If you want to talk about commercial space, development or where the town is heading, James is worth finding. Email [email protected] for details of the next Partnership Meeting.

23/09/2026

Meet the team: Lynn Pratt, our Chairperson.

Lynn leads the Executive Board and makes sure Bicester Vision stays focused on what local businesses and the town actually need. That means chairing the board, representing members with local authority partners, and holding the organisation to account.

Few people know Bicester public life better. Lynn has been involved in local politics since 1974, served as a Bicester Town Councillor from 1999 to 2023, and was twice Mayor of Bicester. She sat on Cherwell District Council until 2024, holding the Property Portfolio and chairing the Accounts, Audit and Risk and Personnel Committees. She is also a Trustee of The Hummingbird Centre and Chairman of the Trustees of The Feoffee Charity.

Our Partnership Meetings run quarterly and are the best place to put a question to the Chair directly. Email [email protected] for the next date.

18/09/2026

The winner of the Small Business Award sponsored by Bicester Vision and Wednesday Business Club - Bicester at the CBAs2026

is:

🏆Pea Green Physio🏆

Congratulations on this fantastic accomplishment!

17/09/2026

You have probably walked past St Edburg's a hundred times without stopping to look at it.

That is not a criticism, it is just what happens when you live somewhere. The buildings you see every day become scenery. Then someone moves here, asks what Bicester is like, and you realise you are describing a town from about eight years ago and leaving out the bits that have been here for eight hundred.

Because both things are true at once. There is a mobility campus on a former airfield and warehousing going up on the edge of town, and there is also a church that has stood in the middle of it all since the twelfth century, and a market that has been running for most of that.

Bicester is one of the fastest growing towns in the country. What makes it a good place to build something is that it has never stopped being a town first.

Worth stopping to take a proper look if you're walking past this week.

Image credit: Eddy Gong Xi, Beauty and Bicester

16/09/2026

Welcome to the team, Helen Joy.

Helen joins Bicester Vision as our Partnership Manager, with a clear brief: helping local businesses support one another.

That means building networks, opening doors where they are needed, and making sure businesses get real value out of things like our Best Practice visits. There are a few new programmes launching soon too, and Helen will be right at the heart of them. Watch this space.

Helen also brings twelve years of running People Spark, her own leadership consultancy, working with middle managers and senior leaders across SMEs, particularly in technical and engineering businesses, on the people side of the job.

If your business is working on something where a connection would help, Helen would like to hear from you. Email her at [email protected], or come and find her at the next Bicester Vision event.

10/09/2026

Start a business in Oxfordshire and you are meaningfully more likely to still be trading five years later than you would be almost anywhere else in England.

Of the businesses started here in 2016, 46% were still going in 2021. Nationally that figure was 38%, and across the South East it was 43%.

Eight percentage points does not sound dramatic until you picture it as a room. A hundred people start something in Oxfordshire, a hundred start something elsewhere, and five years on there are eight more still standing here.

There are around 32,200 businesses in the county, and the share of them growing fast is a little above both the national and regional average too.

Some of that is the obvious stuff: research, skills, proximity to Oxford. But a fair bit of it is the less measurable version, which is people knowing who to call. Advice from someone who has already had the problem. An introduction that saves six months.

That last part is the bit we can actually do something about, and it is why we keep putting businesses, councils and community organisations in the same room.

Source and full baseline in the comments.

Address

Bicester

Website

http://www.bicestervision.co.uk/

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