Economic Readiness & Investment Attraction

by Bob Montgomery

Huron County's Economic Development Department is working on three of the items the county has marked as strategic priorities to help bring industry to the county.

Economic Development Officer Natasha Gaudio Harrison says Economic Readiness, Alternate Energy Solutions and Agriculture are all priorities that the Economic Development Department can leverage to attract industry to the county. She says Economic Readiness is critical when companies, for instance, that are interested in Alternate Energy Solutions consider things like what land is available to them and what does the labour market look like. She says these are quite often large operations, the kind of industry any municipality would like to have and they work with professional site selectors to find what they're looking for. And Gaudio Harrison says if a municipality doesn't have that information available, they move on to the next location on their list. She says the site selectors look at a few locations to determine land availability, labour market, supply chains, transportation network, and whether there are other industries there that are complimentary to what they need.

Gaudio Harrison says what the Economic Development team wants to do is identify what the county has to do to make Huron County attractive to site selectors. They presented their proposal to county council at their last meeting and council supported their plan and asked them to come back with a more detailed business case outlining some of their economic opportunities, their opportunities for partnerships throughout the county and what their capacity is. She says if Huron County wants to take advantage of the opportunities that are out there they have to have the answers that site selectors are looking for or they move on to the next site on their list.