Liverpool’s creative community group, The Baltic Triangle Area CIC, have appointed their first female chairperson. Award winning journalist Fiona Shaw has been selected to lead the collective after Liam Kelly stepped down from the role and she is looking forward to being part of big plans in the Liverpool district.
Fiona has been a key part of the district’s success over the past few years, as well as being a director of WordScapes, a baltic business providing publishing and copywriting services. She has also played an integral role in the creation of the area’s 2019 vision manifesto that has been crucial to planning and new initiatives for the area that includes exciting plans for a new train station.
Fiona said:
“As a business tenant over the last ten years, I’m looking forward to taking on the Chair role for Baltic Triangle CIC as we begin to emerge from the pandemic. Baltic Triangle’s residents and businesses have changed over the last two years, and our role is to provide a voice for them all. With a new station in the plans and new businesses, venues and visitors arriving all the time, it’s an exciting time to be in Baltic.”
The CIC was established in 2012 to be the voice of the business community in the regenerated area. In 2022 the Baltic Triangle has a healthy mix of residential and business stakeholders, so it’s the ‘area company’ who will take on the responsibility of updating the vision based on what the community needs.
The Baltic Triangle Area CIC recently conducted a community engagement day which helped the creative quarter to establish what they wanted to see going forward. In addition to the new train station, there will be more events, community initiatives and conversations about green and creative spaces – all geared towards the area evolving into its next period of growth.
The CIC is looking to push ahead with recruiting more board members that can complement a growing portfolio of venues, education services, art and culture and to be a first point of contact for residents and revellers to focus on longer-term interests.
Area Communications Director Russell Gannon said:
“When it came to appointing a new chair, Fiona was the unanimous choice. She is an inspiring community leader with a wealth of experience that will push the CIC into 2022. She has been instrumental in helping us create a vision for the future with big plans such as the new train station, so she’s the perfect forward thinking choice.”
He continued: “The station is a huge project that will naturally take a little time to implement but there’s going to be lots of exciting developments in the meantime. Fiona knows the area very well and the recent engagement from the community has given us some really useful feedback, so we’re looking to host more events and community initiatives”
The Baltic Triangle area has come a long way since it’s rebirth as the city’s creative quarter. Abandoned old warehouse buildings are now thriving with creative businesses, new apartments, hotels, restaurants, bars and events spaces. In 2016 a government report anointed The Baltic Triangle in the top five fastest growing creative and digital clusters outside London.
Over £128 million has been invested in new developments in The Baltic Triangle since 2012 but in exciting new plans, an eye-watering £600 million of developments are currently on the table. Electing their first ever female chairperson, Fiona Shaw, a forward thinking journalist and business leader, is a sign of the times at The Baltic Triangle Area CIC.
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