Funding Deal Means Busy Week

Monday was a busy day for us here at Shooting Star: the embargoed announcement of a £111m package of government funding for Greater Lincolnshire meant there was plenty of media interest in our client the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership.

The LEP had spent nine months bidding competitively for money to support key projects across the county and an announcement on the winners and losers was expected lastweek. After at least ten rewrites we had our embargoed news release ready to go on Friday and spent the morning briefing the media about what to expect.

Unfortunately, however, in the world of media relations things rarely go according to plan, and at 5pm we were still waiting for the green light from central government to issue our releases, embargoed or otherwise.

Our announcement went out last thing on Friday, which is never ideal for the poor reporters who want to write the thing up before they go home for the weekend. With the embargo lifted on Monday morning we were free to spread the news via informal media calls and interview opportunities, one of which we held at the University of Lincoln’s Think Tank building.

We brought together the LEP’s chair, Ursula Lidbetter MBE, Lincoln MP Karl McCartney and Lincolnshire County Council leader Martin Hill to meet the media and welcome the significant injection of funds into the county.

The result was plenty of coverage for the Growth Deal online, in print and on the radio, and the story (and our media call) led the evening bulletin on BBC Look North. All in a day’s work for a busy PR agency! JA