Wanted: £40,000 business boss

Sea Space is seeking a director for its new Hastings and Bexhill Enterprise Hub - which aims to help small and start-up businesses flourish.

The job will be funded by Seeda and European money for three years at 250,000 inclusive of on-costs.

The director will be based at University Centre Hastings and will help to link businesses at the Creative Media Centre in Hastings town centre and the soon-to-be-built Innovation Centre at Churchfields industrial estate in St Leonards with UCH.

The second phase of the Creative Media Centre should be completed by the summer with the Innovation Centre to be built by the end of 2005, which would mean over 100 small businesses could soon be filling them.

Those two centres will become focal points of the hub, although other creative and high-tech businesses in Hastings and Bexhill can benefit from it.

However, Bexhill will not become a major part of the hub until a small business centre is created in the town.

A centre is planned but no timescale has been given for when it might be built.

Kevin Nicholson, business development manager at Sea Space, explained what kind of person the regeneration company is looking for.

He said: "We are looking for an experienced business person with knowledge of small businesses who understands the problems and barriers they face.

"At the heart of a hub's aims is to encourage the development of start-up companies and to nurture them as they grow. We hope the director will help to create a spirit of entrepreneurship in Hastings and Bexhill."

He added that the director will work to provide a range of business services from mentoring to networking and financial advice.

He or she will also work with UCH to provide courses to skill the local workforce to meet the needs of the growing creative sector in the area.

The Hastings and Bexhill Enterprise Hub will become the 21st hub within Seeda (South East England Development Agency). Other hubs are based in places like Oxford and Southampton.

Sea Space placed an advert for the director in the Sunday Times last week and in the Times yesterday.

The deadline for applications is November 22 with interviews to be held on December 2.

The successful applicant should start at some stage in the New Year.