Business Diaries

Business Wales spoke to PORT accountants who are a firm of Chartered Certified Accountants and Registered Auditors with offices in Bangor and Colwyn Bay. The original practice was formed in Bangor in the 1920’s and has evolved to now contain four partners, Robert O’Regan, Garry Tann, Jon Owens and Ceris Evans. They provide a wide range of services to assist small and medium sized businesses, which include accounts preparation, VAT, payroll, CIS and audits. What...

Business Wales spoke to Huw Jones of Shipshape Landscape in Llandudno, where he gave us an insight into his experiences of starting a business in north Wales. Huw started Shipshape Landscape over 10 years ago and he covers everything from a simple garden clearance to a total garden make over. What inspired you to start your own Landscaping company? I had been working in retail since leaving college and an opportunity arose to start my...

How Abbey Glass grew from being ‘a man and a van’ to helping fit out some of London’s swishest clubs and restaurants “You’ve just got to be out there all the time, making sure that potential customers know your name, and that past customers remember your name.” That’s the message from Angela Worgan, director of Abbey Glass, based in Llantrisant. Business Wales visited Abbey after reading about their involvement in fitting out Sexy Fish, London’s...

With the increase in popularity of craft beers across the UK, many micro-breweries have recently started up in Wales. Business Wales spoke to Dave Faragher of Wild Horse Brewing Company in Llandudno, where he gave us an insight into his experiences of starting a business in north Wales. What inspired you to start your own brewery? Emma and I lived in Canada from 2010 to 2014 and that is where our passion (or obsession!) for...

Richard Sheppard of Newport-based Interceptor Solutions is at the cutting edge of multilingual websites – and his first success at the age of 14 gave pointers to his future career. Business Wales caught up with Richard before a presentation in Cardiff where he was set to explain LinguaSkin – Interceptor’s revolutionary piece of software that enables multilingual access to online services (web applications and sites). We kicked off the conversation by asking Richard about his...

Wow I’ve had a fab response to my first diary entry, great to receive such lovely comments and support from both people we do and don’t know. The last month has again been really busy again, a couple of weeks of that with extra fun and games as Julie our Office Administrator was on holiday, I was attempting to do mine and her job - succeeded in some areas and failed in others - only...

How I got into the cleaning business Before I start telling you about what’s involved in running my by business day to day, I thought I’d give you a bit of my history. After leaving college to work in a PR & Marketing company in Leicester, I’d never have imagined that lots of years later I’d be running a business employing more than 50 people in north Wales! So first off, how did I make...

Business Wales followed Stuart and Chris Russell from The Kitchen through the planning of their pop-up restaurant, Codtails and Dreams, which has just opened for an 8-week run in Llandudno. Experienced chef Stuart, and Chris, with his advertising and marketing background, have already run one successful pop-up in Llandudno, in partnership with the Great Orme Brewery. Now, after a short break, the brothers are back with the second in their pop-up series, aptly entitled Codtails...

A Rhyl-based flooring company has moved to larger premises, increased its turnover and taken on 2 new members of staff, thanks to support from the Welsh Government’s business support service, Business Wales. Coatech, a family-run business which specialises in resin flooring for the commercial, industrial and domestic sectors, turned to Business Wales for advice on improving its energy efficiency. Business Wales helped Coatech to develop an environmental management system that has enabled the company to...

Phil Goodwin set up Bio-Check in June 2012, developing unique new products to help re-establish Wales and the UK as a force in the food testing marketplace. Business Wales gave Phil support with market research and a grant to upgrade manufacturing machinery, allowing him to increase Bio-Check’s capacity. Phil explained “They’ve given us a really good market research programme, which has helped make sure we get the right products into the market at the right...