Budding entrepreneurs in the Bognor Regis and Littlehampton area are now able to access specialist business support through the Arun Enterprise Gateway. Gateway Director Gareth Sear manages the project and works closely with the local community to encourage the growth of start-up and small businesses.

The Enterprise Gateways are designed to reach those who don’t normally access mainline business support, developing them personally so that they can start up businesses, helping to improve the local economy.

Enterprise Gateways are dynamic and flexible and Gareth takes a fresh, accessible approach to business support, combining his passion for business with the ability to communicate well across different sectors of society. This will help to ensure that the Arun Enterprise Gateway achieves the four overarching aims:

• To help develop the culture of the local communities so that more people believe that starting a business is a realistic option for them and their families.
• To contribute to bringing business start up and survival rates up to the regional average.
• To increase the take up of mainstream business support services.
• To help entrepreneurs support and learn from each other and to become less dependant on publicly funded activity.

Many businesses fail within the first three years and this figure has been said to be as high as 80%. If entrepreneurs access business support, they are 50% more likely to succeed. If every business that was set up continued to flourish, the effect on the local economy could be dramatic.

This support is available for free through Arun Enterprise Gateway and this support start ups from before the seed is planted, developing the very idea of enterprise.

If you want to know more about the work Arun Enterprise Gateway is doing, or the unbiased and free support it can offer you, please contact:

» Gareth Sear on 01243 841607 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it