Strategic Partnerships

Torbay Development Agency is facilitating a number of strategic partnerships to promote the economic growth and regeneration of Torbay.

The Employment and Skills Board is an employer led, employer focussed strategic body designed to help ensure that employers are ideally positioned to guide and influence the skills priorities for the area of Torbay, Teignbridge and the South Hams.

Torbay Ambassadors aim to promote Torbay as a place to invest to key decision makers to realise Torbay’s potential as a competitive business location offering low costs, high skills and an excellent quality of life. The ambassadors are leading experts who are operating businesses in Torbay’s key target sectors for investment - Advanced Electronics, Hi Tech, Call Centres, Food and Drink, Environmental Marine Research, Medical and Healthcare.

Torbay Business Forum is comprised of over 100 local businesses and bodies such as the Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Small Businesses, representatives of business sectors in Torbay including solicitors, accountants and surveyors, and individual members whose business makes a significant contribution to the economy of Torbay. Its existence provides a platform for the economic drivers of Torbay and South Devon and to facilitate communication between members of the business community in the area.

The Torbay Hi-Tech Forum originally started life as the Torbay Electronics Forum in autumn 2010. In January 2011 the members moved to change to the Hi-Tech Forum to encompass more of the leading edge businesses in Torbay and the wider South Devon area where technology is a key driver.

The Heart of the South West (HotSW) Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) was formed under the leadership of the private sector, supported by the local authorities from Devon, Plymouth, Somerset and Torbay and the area's District Councils in June 2011. LEPs are new strategic partnership organisations formed to create a powerful economic alliance.