Culture Collective - Promoting the Arts in Kirklees

 

Jane Lambert

Culture Collective is a forum for individuals and organisations that promote the arts in the metropolitan district of Kirklees. Kirklees is a massive borough stretching from Saddleworth Moor on the Greater Manchester border to Spen on the outskirts of Leeds.  It is diverse geographically, economically and socially with busy industrial towns, picturesque villages, wide open spaces and a population from all parts of the world.

I first learned about Culture Collective a year ago when I attended an event that it had organised for the Huddersfield Literary Festival in the forecourt of the Lawrence Batley Theatre (see Culture Collective at Huddersfield Literature Festival 18 May 2025).   I was impressed and asked Dr Chloe Whitehead of The Proper Job Theatre Company whether and, if so, how. I could join in.  She invited me to the next quarterly meeting of the Collective at the Lawrence Batley Theatre.  Except for one occasion when I had a puncture, I have attended every one since.

Chloe discusses Culture Collective and its work in a YouTube interview with Dr Milton Brown of Kirklees Local TV.  Milton is a prominent member of Culture Collective and many other organisations, as well as a director of the TV company. In his interview with Chloe, he discusses Proper Job Theatre Company, the growth of Culture Collective, its activities at the time of the interview, Chloe's plans for its development and information on how to get involved.   Culture Collective keeps a blog and a diary of events.  Today, for example, there are talks by Simon Armitage, the Poet Laureate, and crime writer, Val McDermid.

Attendees at quarterly meetings include representatives from the local authority, Huddersfield University and promoters of all kinds of projects in the arts.   As I mentioned in my previous article, I offered the Collective my skills and experience as an intellectual property lawyer and my knowledge of classical dance and connections with local, national and international ballet companies.  

In addition to sharing my monthly IP and tech law newsletter with members, I provide pro bono initial advice and signposting.  That would cover reviewing contracts, standard terms and conditions and correspondence and advising on legal protection of branding, designs, technology and artistic and literary works.  I can't register trade marks or other intellectual property rights on that basis, but I can suggest patent or trade mark attorneys and other professionals with whom I have worked satisfactorily in the past and make introductions.

As for dance,  I founded and ran an amateur ballet company, I attended its company class and Northern Ballet's Over 55 Class regularly until recently, I reviewed performances and wrote about dance, and I remain a Friend of several of the world's leading companies.  

Anyone wishing to discuss this article or learn more about Culture Collective can call me on 020 7404 5252 during UK office hours or send me a message through my contact page.

Huddersfield Health Innovation Partnership

Author Rlwjones Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 Source Wikimedia Commons

Jane Lambert

The Huddersfield Health Innovation Partnership is a collaboration between the University of Huddersfield, 3M Buckley Innovation Centre, Business Kirklees, the NHS and other local and regional health and wellbeing bodies.  It was formed to offer businesses in the healthcare and well-being sectors:

• business support
• events and workshops
• access to university and NHS expertise
• office and lab space
• funding, and
• facilities for product development.

The University's National Health Innovation Campus is a 7-acre site, with planning permission for up to 7 buildings.  It will include a health and well-being academy, research facilities for skin integrity and infection prevention, psychological therapies, addiction and falls prevention. specialist clinical teaching facilities and space and equipment for teaching members of the public

One of the first events to be offered by the Partnership is AI Innovation in Healthcare which will take place between 09:30 and 15:30 at the John Smith Stadium.  One of the topics to be discussed at that event will be AI in pharmaceutical development.  It is a topic in which I have an obvious professional interest and I have already signed up for it.

The new healthcare and wellbeing businesses that will occupy office and lab space on campus will doubtless require the best possible advice and assistance on intellectual property and healthcare law.  I will continue the initial advice and signposting clinics that I have run for the last 20 years.   In those clinics, I advise startups and other small and medium enterprises pro bono on topics in which I have expertise or refer them to experts in other professions for such services as patent, trade mark or design applications, product design or prototyping, taxation and so on.  As I retain virtual office facilities at the Huddersfield Media Centre on N Northumberland Street I am well placed to promote and assist the Huddersfield Health Innovation Partnership.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 07966 373922 during office hours or send me a message through my contact page,

Huddersfield's 3M Buckley Innovation Centre

Author David Stowell Source Wikimedia Commons Licence CC BY-SA 2.0

 

Jane Lambert

I attended and reported on the launch of the University of Huddersfield's 3M Buckley Innovation Centre just over 9 years ago and mentioned the centre again when it was listed in Nesta's Business Incubators and Accelerators Directory and hosted Rise and Design in Huddersfield in 2017.  Because of covid, it has postponed its regular events although it continued to communicate with its contacts through its monthly newsletter. 

The centre has been in the news recently for two reasons.   First, it has today published in conjunction with the University of Huddersfield, Kirklees Council and the Huddersfield Examiner a list of the top 100 companies in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees.  Secondly, Tracy Brabin, the recently elected Mayor of West Yorkshire visited the centre to discuss ways of promoting innovation in the borough.

Kirklees covers a large area stretching from the Leeds suburbs to the Pennines.   It combines the former mill towns of Batley, Dewsbury and Huddersfield with rural communities such as the Holme Valley, Meltham and Denby Dale. Its population is estimated to be just under 440.000.  For many years those communities were dependent on mining and manufacturing.  Those industries have largely disappeared and been replaced by the diverse range appearing in the list of the top 100 companies.

The 3M Bucjkey Innovation Centre offers design, prototyping, verification and inspection services.  It also lets out space to tenants which includes a firm of patent attorneys as well as meeting and other facilities to its members.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me during office hours on 020 7404 5252 or send me a message through my contact form.

Kirklees Business Conference

Kirklees Business Conference is an exhibition and series of seminars that takes place at the Glapharm stadium in the last week of September. It is the highpoint of Kirklees Business Week.  The Conference is one of a series of events that are organized by Yorkshire Business Conferences throughout the year.  Others are held at various times in other towns and cities in the county.

I visited the exhibition and attended a question and answer session with Ajaz Ahmed, Dean Hoyle and Graham Leslie.

There were some interesting exhibitors bit the ones that caught my eye were the Nanofactory, the Design Council, Leeds City Region, Finance Yorkshire and Eaton Smith. Surprisingly there was nobody from the Intellectual Property Office, :Leeds Patent Information Unit or any of the local patent agencies.  That promoted me to ask Messrs. Ahmed, Hoyle and Leslie why Yorkshire businesses were so uninterested in innovation (see "If Yorkshire were a country ........" 8 Aug 2012).

The answer that I got from Mr Leslie are that Yorkshire folk are not good at shouting about their  achievements.  Really?   Most anecdotes about Yorkshire folk note a superfluity of self-confidence rather than a dearth.   The panel agreed that we need to do something about reviving manufacturing and particularly volume manufacturing.   I pointed out that Yorkshire folk are unlikely to work for the sort of wages available in Brazil, China or India.   Finally, Ajaz Ahmed revealed that he loves shopping.  "Quite unusual for a man" he admitted.   Earlier in the week he had driven all the way to Chester to look at a new retailer.   But then that's his business.

Launch of Huddersfield University's 3M Buckley Innovation Centre

At last year's Kirklees Business Week, Bob Cryan, Vice-Chancellor of Huddersfield University, announced plans to set up an innovation centre. This year's Kirklees Business Week saw the centre's launch by the Calderdale and Kirklees Manufacturing Alliance and I was there to support it.

The centre is known as the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre.  According to its website it is a "3,600 square metre. purpose built specialist environment creating a business facing centre for collaboration and research" which is intended to "act as a catalyst to promote business to business and business to higher education collaborations."

The Centre is built around "Innovation Avenue" which appears to be the central corridor shown on the floor plan to the left. The spaces on either side of that corridor will be let to businesses.  Tenants will enjoy access to such facilities as
- design and modelling
- prototyping and manufacturing
- workshops and wet laboratories
- precision measurement, and
- virtual laboratories
at the Centre.   In addition they will be able to enjoy many of the University's resources such as its library.

In his welcome speech, Patrick Allen, the Centre's Managing Director, explained that the mission was to provide access to growth. This was to be achieved through access to finance, access to markets and access to technology.   The University proposes to introduce its tenants to financial institutions, investors and professionals of all kinds who can provide such access. There will be a virtual community of tenants, investors, professionals and prominent business leaders who will mentor the tenants.

Other speakers at the event included

• Isobel Mills of the Leeds Office of the Department of Business Innovation and Skills who raised quite a guffaw when she mentioned Vince Cable's Industrial Strategy, 
• Brian Aungiers from UKTI who spoke about export, 
• a chap from MAS (Manufacturing Advisory Service)    called Steve who spoke at length about his organization, its consortium members and how they divide the country and 
• David Boath of PERA who gave the most entertaining presentation of the evening on how a good design for a dishwasher can come from designing the worst possible dishwasher not to mention poaching salmon in a dishwasher which is how a lady in Usk uses her appliance.

The whole of Yorkshire - nay the whole of .the whole of the North England and beyond - seem to have innovation centres where universities and businesses meet one another - yet, as I pointed out in my intervention to Mr. Allen, innovation in this region lags well behind South East England.   Will the 3M Buckley make a difference and, if so, why?

I for one will certainly do my best to help the Centre.  I have offered to help on behalf of my network of patent and trade mark attorneys, solicitors, product design consultants, angels, financial institutions and other contacts with talks, clinics and any other way I can.