CalComms Managing Director, Antony Calvert, gives his thoughts as we start a new year.
And breathe! The CalComms team is recharged and ready to tackle new challenges in 2025 following a busy year.
2024 was a historic, and very busy, year!
The General Election saw an unprecedented, though not unexpected, Labour victory.
CalComms works in many of these seats that flipped last July. Thankfully incoming MPs were very receptive to the kind of work we do and most of our local government projects are benefiting from a general improvement in the planning political environment.
In what has been a landmark year for housebuilding, CalComms is proud to have worked collaboratively with local politicians, communities and local parishes to promote our clients’ sites. There is a need to build homes to ensure people have a choice. The choice for young people to buy their first home, for families to upsize or for others to downsize. CalComms is proud to contribute to the UK's long-term growth by supporting the delivery of consents for over 1,000 homes and strategic support for an additional 11,000 homes this year.
CalComms has also helped deliver a number of new Battery Storage Schemes at the local level this year. These sites will provide 148.5MW of clean energy that can power 40,000 homes and is the equivalent of taking over 19,000 cars off the road. CalComms is delighted and determined to continue supporting the UK’s transition to a Net Zero economy in 2025.
This year has also been a particularly busy for our Work in Westminster team, with lots being achieved on the front of engagement with Ministers, Metro-Mayors, MPs and Peers.
Whether this included raising awareness of Birmingham’s Life Science Industry at ministerial roundtables and Select Committee conferences or briefing DESNZ ministers about the technology behind private wire (an increasingly crucial tool in our national effort to decarbonise the Grid) I couldn’t be more pleased to push for such important campaigns.
Our activity at both Labour and Conservative Conference's should not be forgotten. From organising events for our clients with important Westminster groups to client dinners with relevant politicians, our team worked to ensure the growth this will bring can be communicated to political movers and shakers.
Lastly, I am proud to announce that we are finishing the year with an additional two All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs), which we act as secretariat, to our existing portfolio; the APPG on the West Midlands and a health related APPG. We proudly begin 2025 as the leading providers of professional secretariat support for APPGs.
Politics is sometimes a dirty word, but without it we don't get change and those such as us at CalComms, who are passionate about public affairs, are into politics to do just that.
I am really keen that 2025 brings prosperity, growth and a sense of calm that 2024 certainly didn't give us.
From all at CalComms, a very happy New Year.