A new Rural Enterprise Centre is being built to encourage knowledge sharing, education and business growth amongst the rural community.

The Bath & West Society is giving its former office building at the Bath and West Showground a £520k refurbishment. The new hub will have a conference and seminar area for up to 80 people, a modern commercial test kitchen, a number of meeting rooms and commercial office space for agri-tech, food and drink or rurally focused businesses.

The Rural Enterprise Centre will be a valuable facility in supporting the development of agricultural businesses, land–based skills training and micro food and drink companies.

Chief Executive of the Bath & West Society, Rupert Cox, said: “Education, knowledge transfer and business growth is at the heart of the Centre and the facility will provide the perfect venue for farmers undertaking knowledge transfer projects, higher education graduates completing research projects, further education students gaining farming knowledge and skills, the rural workforce learning vocational skills to increase their employability and micro food and drink businesses looking to expand and grow.

“Our aim is to cultivate rural advancement, and we want to do this by creating a living-breathing community for rural businesses to collaborate and learn, share insight, develop products and help one another to advance enterprise across the region.”