North Western Regional Office

The North West region covers the two council areas of Derry City & Strabane and the Causeway Coast & Glens.

Our North West regional office is located in Londonderry and works in partnership with local businesses to help them expand, invest in skills training, undertake R&D and supports local companies to grow exports.

Successes

We are committed to helping businesses in the North West region grow and succeed. During our Corporate Plan period, 2011-12 to 2015-16 our support totalled almost £61m to 2,990 local and 120 external projects, securing total investment of over £323m in the local economy and promoting 4,953 jobs. Working with stakeholders, our role is to help attract new investors to the region.

The North West has a strong life & health sciences sector, including the £11.5m Centre for Stratified Medicine which hosts 15 world class clinical researchers and is the only one of its kind on the island of Ireland. The region also has a vibrant creative industries sector and hosted the first UK City of Culture in Londonderry in 2013. It boasts local home grown talent including children's media company, Dog Ears which produced Puffin Rock, a popular children’s TV series which is shown globally.

Exports

Our North West regional office has worked with many companies in the region to help them achieve export success such as Strabane based manufacturer Boran-MoPack who has invested £2.4million to position its business for further export growth and Spatialest who secured new orders worth an estimated £50,000 in the US with Invest NI support.

Working in partnership

In addition to our direct support to businesses in this region, we work in partnership with local stakeholders in the North West.

Community plans

Under local government reform, Derry City & Strabane District Council and Causeway Coast & Glens Borough Council have greater responsibility for economic development. Community Plans are being developed to encourage investment and growth in the region and ensure the region makes the most of those sectors with high growth potential. Our North West office is working with the councils to help develop the Community Plans, providing key information and data on areas such as job creation, entrepreneurship and regional competitiveness.

Regional Manager - Des Gartland

Des Gartland is our North West Regional Manager. He has been in the role since 2008 and prior to this, spent 13 years in the private sector.

Invest NI Support