Business students meet PM

OLDHAM College students met Prime Minister David Cameron at an event for budding entrepreneurs.

Pierre Le Page, Steven Lyall, Rebecca Bowerbank, Louis Bollard, Luke Boardman, Junaid Aurangzeb and Nick Evans attended yesterday’s Business for You initiative in Leeds.

They are all members of the college’s Peter Jones Enterprise Academy, which opened at Oldham College last September.

Oldham College is the North-West Hub for the academy — the brainchild of “Dragons’ Den” star Peter Jones.

The millionaire entrepreneur is working with 17 colleges in England and scores of corporate partners to make sure students learn the business skills they need.

They complete an innovative one-year course during which they are given the chance to start up and run their own business.

Meanwhile, Mr Cameron was in Yorkshire to spearhead a new campaign with the private body StartUp Britain to inspire a new generation of British entrepreneurs. He also announced plans to open up more than 300 empty and under-used government buildings to new and small firms at cheap rates to help kick-start the economy.

“The British Government has a huge stock of buildings at our disposal,” explained Mr Cameron.

“The first priority for the ones we aren’t using is to sell them off, but in the meantime many are going to be sitting idle.

“So let’s match the capacity we have got with the need that’s out there.”