How Meath is at the centre of it all

Jackie Maguire, CE, Meath County Council

Look at things differently

To be successful in business means, sometimes, taking a very different perspective on things. At Meath County Council we can see this from the reaction already to our #MakeItMeath campaign, aimed at showcasing what we believe to be the most business friendly region in the EU. People have noticed our non-traditional approach to getting businesses to set up here. Now, changes in the UK will have many businesses there looking around for a new EU base. Let us show you things from a different perspective.

Take a map of the two islands

I suppose it’s for convenience we’re all taught to look at a map in the same way. We normally put London at the ‘bottom’ and Scotland at the ‘top’. But why should we? We live on a globe, not on a flat map.  (There’s a whole different debate about Mercator maps if you really want to get into this). So there isn’t a top and bottom to a map of these islands, unless that’s the only way we choose to look at it. So why not turn the map 90 degrees, effectively putting London at ‘3 o’clock’?

Turn around

If you turn the map around just by that quarter turn you can get a completely different perspective on our two islands and where we sit within them. The first thing I noticed is that Meath is right there, smack in the middle of both islands. We can claim, looking at the map, that Meath is ideally located no matter where on these islands you do your business. With our 30 minute access to Dublin Airport you are probably an hour flight time beyond that to Glasgow and Edinburgh, the Isle of Man, the British Midlands, London, Cornwall, Cork, Limerick, Mayo and Belfast. You can’t get any more central?

A hard Brexit is going go fall

It is inevitable that many British businesses will be searching for locations to base themselves to take advantage of the EU while still not being far away from home in the UK. Following a weekend FT article about banks in London looking at Frankfurt we tweeted that Meath is the ‘slam dunk’ location for financial services companies with many, many Meath residents  currently commuting daily to Dublin to work in that industry. We have the expertise here and they’d love to avoid the grinding commute.

Europe’s most business ready region

Our Enterprise Team can’t wait to bring any UK company, big or small, for a tour of Meath to convince them of the benefits of Meath as a business location. If you know of any such company that is seriously thinking about setting up outside the UK do get in touch with our Enterprise Team and we’ll do the rest. Meath will thank you for it.