MORE than a hundred local businesses came along to the fourth Thurrock Business Conference at the Civic Hall, Blackshots, Grays, on Wednesday morning.

Based around the theme of Get Connected – to new contacts, new ideas and local community – delegates heard from three speakers who spoke about how they utilised their local connections to benefit their business and career opportunities.

One of the speakers, Ian Goldring, was from the URBACT Jobtown programme and spoke about making the most of working with European partners to support learning and exchange on shared issues such as youth unemployment.

Leading councillors, the council’s Chief Executive Graham Farrant and other senior officers were also at Wednesday’s event, joining businesses business support organisations and students from The Ockendon Academy who helped with supporting the conference with logistics, registration, meeting-and-greeting for example.

Mr Farrant said: “This annual conference gives us a chance to tailor and shape our business support services to meet the current and forecast needs of Thurrock's business community. “The annual event is our chance to consult with businesses and seek their views so we can change what we do.

“It is a chance to engage with local businesses and provide interesting, useful information either through the speakers or simply by networking, on topics that will be to their benefit.

“It gives us a platform to talk about the growth that’s happening across the borough, and provides an opportunity for us to listen to businesses - via interactive voting with questions designed to help us understand the issues businesses are facing currently, so we can shape the way we design our support for the next year.”

He said: “The relationship we have built up with our business community is much better than it was five years ago.

“This is partly through our commitment to hold these annual conferences, and partly through the year-round engagement through such things as the Thurrock Business Board.”