On 29 April, Together Gloucestershire organised our very first Meet the Buyer event with WSP. The goal was to meaningfully connect local suppliers with WSP as a buyer, driving the local economy, supporting local businesses, and ensuring more of the great businesses that we have here, are in WSP’s supply chain. What a day it was, and already the first sales have been secured and the first contracts quoted. Exactly what the event intended!
The day combined a blend of learning opportunities delivered by WSP’s experts, along with peer-to-peer networking opportunities, and one-to-one meetings between the WSP procurement team and prospective suppliers.
One of those businesses was Wildwood Ecology who have already quoted to support work on the M5 Junction 10 project. Richard Dodd, Managing Director of Wildwood Ecology comments:
“The Together Gloucestershire Meet the Buyer event with WSP was excellent and provided us with real opportunity. Not only did we connect with some great, local businesses, but we had the chance to connect with WSP who need our services. We are now being onboarded as a supplier, and have already submitted our first quotation. The event has had a direct impact on the local, Gloucestershire economy, and we’re proud to be a member of Together Gloucestershire.”
Another successful partnership is being developed between WSP and Tyler Grange. Henry Brittain, Sales, Bid & Client Care Coordinator for Tyler Grange comments
“As well as meeting representatives from WSP, the networking gave us credible contacts that offer collaborative opportunities for us to co-supply each other. There was a really great, fostered atmosphere at the event, so that even when there weren’t immediate contract opportunities available, businesses were committed to building the business foundations in Gloucestershire and to supporting each other. This should go on to move the local economy forward, and this was really, really useful.”
“As well as connecting with WSP as a supplier, I also valued making great new connections and seeing the future potential. We met SecondLife who recycle and refurbish IT equipment, and we have been able to introduce them into our organisation for any future needs.”
Anna Wilson, Head of Liveable Places and Contract Director – Gloucestershire County Council for WSP said:
“We have not been involved in anything quite like this, ever before. I was involved in another region in something similar, but without the filter, and it was not successful.
Working with Together Gloucestershire has really been worthwhile because it has already made sure the companies fit our criteria and are relevant.”
Hearing from Anna Wilson, Contract Director at WSP
The undeniable highlight of the day for many businesses were the seminars delivered by the WSP team, including Anna Wilson who is Contract Director for the WSP contract with Gloucestershire County Council. WSP holds a four-year Highways Professional Services contract with Gloucestershire County Council, maintaining 5,875km of Highways that support more than 60,000 local residents, not to mention hundreds of Gloucestershire businesses. WSP has held the contract since 1 April 2025, and has the option of a further two-year extension for high-quality delivery. WSP has 44 staff based locally to support the contract, and 719 of their staff have worked on projects within the County in the last 13 months. This makes them a significant contributor to the local economy, particularly with the contract valued at around £60million over the contract lifetime.
Gloucestershire has a number of high-profile Highways projects underway currently, including the A417 missing link, Gloucestershire Cycle Spine (from Cheltenham to Stroud), and the M5 Junction 10 project and its associated infrastructure changes.
Through the contract, as well as delivering on contractual obligations, WSP has committed to deliver more than £7million worth of social value in the community, impacting the places in which we live and work, as well as committing almost £1million to spend with new, local suppliers in their supply chain. This means over 11% of the contract value will return directly to the County. This is great news for Gloucestershire businesses, offering not only rare opportunity to become a supplier, but assuring that more money remains in County, too.
The guiding principals for WSP include:
- Investing in their team
- Fostering collaboration and partnership
- Having locally dedicated teams, while working at national scale. They see local supply chains as an essential aspect of this
- Direct social value from their team, including two days per year, per staff member, to deliver social value in the local communities where they live and work.
These values highlight why the Meet the Buyer event was so essential and so effective, too. We’ve been able to directly connect local businesses with WSP, and the opportunities are already flowing.
During her presentation, Anna said:
“Most importantly, our approach means we do what is right for Gloucestershire.”
We couldn’t have said it better, ourselves!
WSP is one of the largest professional engineering services globally. They employ more than 83,000 staff and are operating in 50 countries.
Hearing from Sarah Fish, Technical Director at WSP
Sarah hosted a bid-writing workshop, offering businesses insight into public sector procurement, and how to stand out as a potential supplier or sub-contractor. She highlighted the need for a “golden thread” that runs throughout your bid submission, making sure that you have identified what someone will learn about you as they read, and what they will retain at the end of the tender document.
The session was deeply insightful and practical, with a lot of keen questions at the end of the session. Sarah’s three top tips for tendering:
- Proof is essential. Have you done this, or similar before? While not everyone will have like-for-like proof, drawing on your case studies to demonstrate similarity is invaluable. Adding evidence will help you get the higher mark, so make sure you get client feedback.
- Availability isn’t a skill. Experience is. Suppliers often highlight their availability as the reason that they are a good supplier, when instead you should be looking at who in your team has worked on something similar before? This can include work that they did at their previous employer, as long as it is presented as their experience, not the business’s.
- Re-reading your submission is essential. Make sure it says what you mean it to and look out for “Fluff” (words that don’t need to be there), “Guff” (long sentences and big words), “Geek” (overuse of jargon and technical detail), and “Weasel” (evasive, non-committal, slippery wording).
Hearing from Claire Thayers, Social Value Expert, and founder of the Social Value Ideas Factory
Claire is a passionate and dedicated champion of social value: looking at the legacy of major infrastructure projects and assuring that projects we have in Gloucestershire drive value and impact for the County. It is her belief that social value should be at the heart of every contract and that we should always be looking to protect and to further community interests, always.
She started with an overview of Social Value, which is all about looking at the values and ethics behind the brand and how they authentically and meaningfully contribute to improving the local community. In 2012, the Social Value Act came in, and while, in theory, it should have driven more immediate Social Value, it has taken a while to gain momentum. Then in 2023, the government introduced the Social Value Procurement Act, prioritising people, planet, and economy.
Claire highlighted “When we talk CSR, we are looking inwardly into our business. But when we talk Social Value, it is about embracing the Triple Bottom Line and looking at People, Planet, Profit. People often view it as a cost to the business, but often, it’s actually saving businesses money, improving staff retention, and supporting the business to be highly profitable. Buying local is one aspect of that, and this is the value of Together Gloucestershire. This is the economy of Gloucestershire. We need to be working together. We need to have more business between us.”
Social Value isn’t just a nice-to-have; it is County-changing. Claire highlighted the model that has been created in Preston where the local economy was struggling and employment stagnating. They introduced a local-first mentality, and it has turned their economy around. Not only that, but there is value in having shorter, more resilient and local supply chains, which help to reduce business and economic risk. To put that value in context, for Gloucestershire, increasing local sourcing by 5% from the top 100 businesses, will drive an additional £0.5billion into the County economy, each year. Here’s a handy recap of how that works with our “Why it Matters” video and blog post.
Hearing from Eva Tuez-Salvador from The Growth Hub
Eva opened with an introduction to The Growth Hub, an overview of the support that is available to small and growing businesses, and an insight into what the Growth Hub will look like in years to come. She emphasised both the Net Zero Business Support that is currently on offer, delivering business support through three one-to-one meetings focussed on diagnostics, carbon audit, and sustainability in practice.
At the same time, The Growth Hub is actively looking for business mentors that can support and advise businesses looking for accelerated growth. They welcome any business leader with experience in their field, but are particularly short of female mentors and mentors from the creative industry. Anyone keen to get involved should contact the Growth Hub +
Since their inception in 2014, The Growth Hub has supported more than 16,000 businesses, with more than 45,000 visitors to their centres. They have grown through the power of collaboration and have recently secured a new funding structure that will secure the future of the Growth Hubs for several more years. This will allow them to continue to deliver their core services, to maintain their six in-community hubs along with their business navigators, and to deliver an extensive programme of training events, too.
Together Gloucestershire is proud to have The Growth Hub on board as a partner of our initiative, and we are working together to drive local economic growth.
Thank you and what next?
Thank you to everyone that joined us, who are already doing business together or planning to, for supporting a more local, resilient supply chain, and for helping us improve Gloucestershire.
This was just the first in our Meet the Buyer series. We have a further four events that are already in the pipeline, with a goal to have 12 events per year, including one with Hartpury University and Hartpury College on the 30 September, and a second one with WSP in November. There are some great events and brands, soon to be revealed. Make sure you are registered on our email database to be the first to hear about events and to book tickets.
Register interest for Meet the Buyer
