Mayor welcomes The Honourable The Irish Society

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Members of grant-giving charity The Honourable Irish Society have met with Council officials to hear about the progress of the City Deal.

The Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council, Alderman Graham Warke, and Council representatives met the delegation in the Guildhall and also discussed the region’s growing Fintech cluster, and plans for Ebrington and Fort George. 

During the visit, hosted by the Londonderry Chamber of Commerce, the group also visited C-TRIC (the Clinical Translational Research and Innovation Centre), the new Visit Derry Visitor Information Centre, and North West Regional College’s Springtown Campus.

Mayor Warke said: “It’s vitally important that we continue to strengthen the unique relationship that our city and district has with The Irish Society and the City of London, and I was delighted to discuss many of the exciting projects and opportunities that are developing within this region.”

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City of London delegation meets Derry Strabane City Deal partners

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Representatives from the City of London Corporation met with key City Deal partners during a visit to Derry.

During the trip, the group of senior officials met with the Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council, Alderman Graham Warke, and representatives from the local education and business sectors.

The London delegation spoke with students involved in the region’s first professional financial services qualification (Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment), delivered to post-primary students, while financial services company FinTrU outlined the continued expansion of their sector in the North West.

City Deal Innovation leads also shared key objectives and took the visitors – who included the City of London Corporation’s Chairperson of Policy and Resources Committee, Catherine McGuinness, and Head of UK Partnerships Andrew McGowan – on a tour of Ulster University’s new School of Medicine at Magee.

Mayor Warke, said: “The City of London delegation during their visit got a unique insight into the key role our region is playing in the success of UK financial services and how the City Deal investment in research and innovation, particularly big data analytics and AI, will drive our regional economy.”

Meanwhile, Mayor Warke also travelled to London last month to attend the installation of the incoming Lord Mayor of the City of London Corporation, Alderman Vincent Keaveny. Mayor Warke said it was a “huge honour” to be invited to the ceremony and Derry City and Strabane District Council was committed to further building the close relationship between the two cities, including work, cultural, business, educational and tourism linkages.

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Scone-sational! Derry café’s scones named best in NI

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Derry’s Cottage Café is celebrating after its home-baked scones were named the best in Northern Ireland.

The thatched roofed café, in the city’s historic Craft Village, beat more than 100 other hotels, restaurants and cafes to win the hotly-contested title from the Dairy Council of Northern Ireland.

Michelle Devine from the Cottage Café, who bakes the scones from scratch in a variety of sweet and savoury flavours, entered the competition after a customer told her about it.

“I knew the judges liked our scones when they came around to try them but there were so many other great places in for it, I never thought we had a chance. But then when they called out our name I nearly exploded!” she said.

Michelle, who learned how to make scones from watching her mother bake, said the key to a delicious scone is to go easy on the mixture.

“To me, it’s all in the way you do it and having the oven at the right temperature. There’s not really much else to it,” she revealed.

The Cottage also won the Best Cafe category in the competition, while Patricia’s Coffee House on the Quay was one of five finalists for best cafe.

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Celebrity chef enjoys a taste of LegenDerry

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The North West’s LegenDerry food scene has been showcased in a new online travel series.

Chef Randy Lewis, who describes himself as the ‘Phileas Fogg of food’, met with local chefs, brewers and producers to sample the fantastic dishes and drinks created in the City and surrounding areas.

Randy’s LegenDerry Adventure sees Lewis discover what makes the LegenDerry food scene so special; from Lo & Slo sauces and Dart Mountain cheeses, to fresh catch from fishmonger Moore on the Quay and Mekong Street Food’s Asian-inspired dishes.

The chef, who runs the Randaddy’s restaurant in Co Clare, also tried out some unique local experiences including paddleboarding along the River Foyle with Far and Wild adventures.

All four episodes are available to watch on YouTube, social media and on RTE.ie. You can catch the first instalment here.

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Derry bookstore crowned regional bookshop of the year

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Little Acorns Bookstore in Derry has been named Regional Bookshop of the Year at The An Post Irish Book Awards. 

Established in 2011, Little Acorns Bookstore has an overall stock of more than 40,000 books and specialises in Irish-related subjects, authors and publishers. 

The Foyle Street shop was named Ulster winner of the competition, with the other regional prizes awarded to Kennys Bookshop in Galway, The Company of Books in Dublin, Kerr’s Bookshop in Cork and The Maynooth Bookshop in Kildare.

Jenni Doherty, owner of Little Acorns Bookstore said: “I really am totally shocked, I feel so, so honoured and this is as much for the wonderful folks of Derry and Donegal who have ensured I kept going through the pandemic. They have all shown me fantastic support and loyalty and are all legends.”

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Council secures £16m for Levelling Up projects

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Three local redevelopment projects have received a £16m boost as part of the UK-wide Levelling Up Fund.

The funding has been secured by the Council to progress with Derry’s Daisyfield Community Sports Hub (which received £4.2m), the Acorn Farm St Columb’s Park Regeneration project (£5.6m), and Derg Active in Castlederg (£6.4m).

A total of £4.8 billion in government Levelling Up Funding was announced across the UK, with Derry City and Strabane District Council receiving a third of Northern Ireland’s £49m allocation.

Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council Alderman Graham Warke described the funding decision as “a really positive good news story for our Council area”.

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FAST Technologies joins forces with Bloc

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Derry-based FAST Technologies have embarked on a “very exciting chapter” after receiving a major investment from the Magherafelt-based Bloc Group.

The deal between Bloc and FAST (Factory Automation & Systems Technologies) brings together two export-focused manufacturing operations which excel in design and engineering.

Based in the Skeoge Industrial Estate, FAST provides bespoke technical solutions to a global client base including DuPont, Unilever, Caterpillar and Seagate.

Welcoming the deal with Bloc – who specialise in blinds and skylight systems, and recently moved into healthcare solutions – FAST co-founder Eamonn Lynch, said: “We believe this represents a new and very exciting chapter for both companies and our combined workforce.

“Bloc’s support and investment will enable us to consolidate and strengthen our offering and help FAST rise to the next level in terms of opportunity and growth.”

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FinTrU recruiting for new Maastricht office

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Financial services firm FinTrU has announcing it is opening an office in Maastricht.

​Based at the southern tip of The Netherlands, next to the Belgian border, the Maastricht site will help the company support its Tier 1 Investment Bank clients and assist them in managing their global regulatory requirements.

Setting up a base in the Dutch city (where the Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1992, establishing both the EU and the Euro) further strengthens FinTrU’s operation in Europe. The company also opened a new Dublin office in September.

FinTrU, which currently employs more than 900 people across Derry, Belfast, London, Dublin and New York, is now recruiting for new roles in Maastricht. For more information on vacancies, visit FinTrU’s career portal: www.fintru.com/careers

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New Derry-Edinburgh route to take flight in May

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Loganair has announced a new service between City of Derry Airport and Edinburgh Airport.

The 55-minute direct route, which launches on May 17 2022, will initially operate three times weekly on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. During the peak summer months, frequency will increase with additional flights on Thursdays and Saturdays.

Steve Frazer, managing director of City of Derry Airport, said: “Improving connectivity is key to strengthening our frequency to key business routes in support of the North West’s regional development plans.

“We are experiencing a high demand for leisure, visiting friends and family and as tourism is a growing element of our economy, we see this as a great opportunity to connect both cities and regions.”

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Alchemy named one of UK’s best tech workplaces

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Derry-based Alchemy Technology Services has been ranked at number 10 on a list of the UK’s Best Workplaces for Tech.

When the list of medium-sized tech firms was compiled, by the Great Place to Work institute, 97% of Alchemy’s workforce said: ‘Our customers would rate the service we deliver as “excellent”’.

The news follows Alchemy’s recent rankings as number 29 on the UK’s Best Workplaces list, and number 11 on the UK’s Best Workplaces for Women list.

Alchemy was launched in September 2018 to provide insurance software implementation and support. Since then, it has grown from two people to more than 100 staff, working with insurance companies, system integrators and software providers to support the digitisation of the global insurance industry.

CEO John Harkin said: “We spend a lot of time and money on developing our culture. We foster a workplace that encourages and values collaboration, knowledge sharing and discourages internal competition and we have achieved this when 18 of the 36 months we have been in business have been spent in lockdown.”

Alchemy is currently hiring Senior Technical Analysts to join their team. For more information visit www.alchemytechs.com

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