{"id":776136,"date":"2026-09-19T20:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T20:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/776136\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T20:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T20:52:15","slug":"private-sector-interest-in-guernsey-digital-greenhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/776136\/","title":{"rendered":"Private sector interest in Guernsey digital greenhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former Commerce and Employment Minister Kevin Stewart, who helped create the centre, described the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c62mj05een0o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">decision to close it as &#8220;absolutely crazy<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But the current committee said it had been listening to interested parties who had ideas for the future of the greenhouse and was &#8220;confident the service will continue in some form&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said it planned to continue its &#8220;open engagement&#8221; throughout September, before publishing a formal bid in October, through which parties could apply to take on the centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Laine said: &#8220;I don&#8217;t want there to be any ambiguity about this: the committee is wholly dedicated to ensuring that Guernsey has world class support for entrepreneurs and real growth potential for innovation in every industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It simply feels that there is only so much that a government-run incubator can do, and while the offering at the moment has value, it can be even more effective if led by the private sector: more dynamism, more agility and lived experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This is the complete opposite to us turning our back on entrepreneurs. We want to turbo-charge the support that is in place for them and drive real innovation and growth in our economy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Susan Watson, chair of the Innovate Guernsey Board, added: &#8220;It is encouraging to see such strong early interest in building on the Digital Greenhouse&#8217;s legacy. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The opportunity now is to create an independently run, commercially sustainable organisation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Follow BBC Guernsey on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bbcguernsey\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X, external<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bbcguernsey\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook, external<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcguernsey\/\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram, external<\/a>. Send your story ideas to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/mailto:channel.islands@bbc.co.uk\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">channel.islands@bbc.co.uk, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Commerce and Employment Minister Kevin Stewart, who helped create the centre, described the decision to close it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-776136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}