RiDO Rotherham Investment & Development Office

Rotherham’s award winning activities to help entrepreneurs on the road to success were highlighted this week as the borough’s newest enterprise centre welcomed a royal visitor. 

HRH The Countess of Wessex officially opened Matrix @ Dinnington, the latest of the four purpose-built centres created by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and operated by their regeneration arm, Rotherham Investment & Development Office (RiDO). 

During a tour of the building, she had the opportunity to meet with a number of Rotherham companies located at the centre including Freshlook Furniture, Benditnow, Castus, 3G Controls and AVA Training. 

Matrix can accommodate up to 41 companies in purpose-built office and workshops, and RiDO are able to house over 200 businesses at any one time within all its centres around the borough. The centres incorporate specialist support services which make them ideal locations for new-start and young businesses to thrive and grow. 

The visit follows the news that in March RiDO won the UK Business Incubation’s (UKBI) 2011 Incubation Champion Award for the best integrated incubation and enterprise services in the country. This is the second time that Rotherham has won the award in the past six years.

Commenting on the Royal visit Councillor Gerald Smith, Rotherham Council's Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Development Services said; "Her Royal Highness saw the work of the centre’s companies and heard about the innovative environmental features within the building. She appeared to be genuinely interested in both the companies’ progress, and how the Dinnington site had been reclaimed and revitalised.”

The building’s design incorporates a number of innovative environmental features, including thermal mass; using the building’s heavy dense materials to regulate temperature and; Biomass Technology, which uses a biomass boiler, burning wood chips to heat the building. Such features enabled the building to achieve a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) rating of “Very Good”.