Eastern Promise - The Podcast

Episode 137: The Royal Norfolk Show 2025

This week: It's the Royal Norfolk Show 2025!  What more needs be said?  
Only that regular host Mike Rigby is again joined by show co-host Dr Penny Hundleby of the John Innes Centre to tour the avenues and boulevards and winkle out the best bits for our Eastern Promise podcast audience!  Thank you Penny and everyone who gave a clip for this show.
We'll talk education, tech, business, food, renewable energy, agri-tech, science, TOOTH FARIES and at least one bishop, (who of course left the podcast diagonally...) 
Check out the chapter markers and be guided to your content of choice!    
For the entire back catalogue of the Eastern Promise podcast, and to contact us directly, visit our website here. 
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 136: King's Lynn Festival & On Set with 'Chicken Town'

This Week: It's arts and culture a-go-go, as first we travel to King's Lynn to chat with Anna Pool, Festival Manager for the King's Lynn Festival, about the exciting programme of classical music concerts, talks and tours!
Then, we go behind the camera and 'on set' of the new Norfolk-set comedy crime caper 'Chicken Town' with Producer Tom Wood and Director Richard Bracewell!
The East of England is a cultural juggernaut and this proves it!  
To find out more about the King's Lynn Festival and to book tickets, click here.
For more details about chicken Town, click here (NUA)
To listen to the FULL Eastern Promise back catalog, or to contact the show, click here.
Eastern Promise is proud to be sponsored by Mills & Reeve.  

Episode 135: 'Choose Your Own [Cambridge] Adventure' - CWOW 2025

This Week: You can now hear Mike Rigby's unabridged, unedited and unplugged talk at Cambridge Wide Open Week, delivered beside the beautiful River Cam at Cambridge Wide Open Week! 
For more on Cambridge Wide Open Week click here.
To listen to the FULL Eastern Promise back catalog, or to contact the show, click here.
Eastern Promise is proud to be sponsored by Mills & Reeve.  

Episode 134: Cambridge Innovation Capital

This Week: Does the investor make the ecosystem, or does the ecosystem shape the investor?  That's the question our expert guests will be answering, amongst others, as we dive headlong into the swirling waters of venture capital,with two of our region's foremost experts as our guides!
Cambridge Innovation Capital is a trusted brand; the University of Cambridge's preferred partner when it comes to investment and your host, Mike Rigby, sat down with CIC Managing Partner, Andrew Williamson and fellow partner - and returning guest - Michael Anstey to find out more.
For more information on Cambridge Innovation Capital, click here.
For the FULL Eastern Promise back catalog, and to send us a message through our contact form, visit the Eastern Promise website here.
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.  

Episode 133: Norwich BID's City Centre Manifesto

This Week: We talk to Executive Director of the Norwich Business Improvement District (BID), Stefan Gurney, and Norwich BID board member, Joe Faulkner, about the BID's City Centre Manifesto for the ancient and venerable city of Norwich.  
We'll learn what prompted this document; what is its intent, and how it seeks to marry the desirable with the achievable.  
Norwich is unlike any city in the UK; to use a cliché, it's small but punching well above its weight. No wonder the Norwich BID are seeking to declare the City of Stories the Capital of the East!  
And if other cities in our region may wish to debate that claim, a good-humoured discussion laced with friendly rivalry about why our places are awesome can be A. Good. Thing.  
Read the Norwich City Centre manifesto here.  
You can listen to our podcast back catalog, as well as contacting Eastern Promise, here.
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.     

Episode 132: UKREiiF Day 2 Highlights

This week: It's our second slice of UKREiiF 2025 and this time, we've got AN HOUR of highlights from Team Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, from the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster pavilion, the Invest Suffolk stand and an exclusive chat with newly elected Mayor of the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority, Paul Bristow.  
This show has everything: Cross-country coll.aboration between Cambridge & Manchester! Trains, planes and automobiles! Unicorns! And did I say UNICORNS!?!
If you're wondering why it's so long, then I have good news;  You're lucky it's as short as it is!  What a way to celebrate the East of England's barnstorming turn at the UK's most important property. investment and infrastructure show.
My thanks in particular to the Suffolk Economy team, Dr Andy Williams, Norfolk & Suffolk Unlimited, Team Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, Team BA and Infrastructure Matters for making the Eastern Promise trip to Leeds so memorable and worthwhile.  Normal service resumes next week!
For more information, including our back catalog and contact form, visit the Eastern Promise website.  Alternatively, drop us a line at podcast@easternpromise.org.uk.
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve. 1

Episode 131: Yesterday@UKREiiF 2025(Day 1)

Today: Mike Rigby brings you the happenings and highlights from the East of England's events at the UK Real Estate, Investment & Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) recorded at the Royal Arnouries and put together overnight to make sure YOU can find out what's occuring.  Mike talks to Rebecca Britton of Urban & Civic, Beth Dugdale of the Cambridge Growth Company, Steve Beel of Freeport East, Eman Martin-Vingerte of Bosch UK, and Judith Baker of the Cambs and Peterborough Combined Authority.  
PLUS!  Hear Suffolk Business Board Chair Mark Pendlington, Chair of the Cambridge Growth Company Peter Freeman, Jo Cassidy from Arup, and Rob Carter of R G Carter speaking in their various events, captured thanks to some really nice AV guys!  Join me tomorrow for my final day in Leeds...
Eastern Promise is proud to be sponsored by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 130: Cambridge's new Cancer Research Hospital

This week: We're on the world-famous Cambridge Biomedical Campus to find out more about plans for the new, multi-million pound Cancer research hospital there.  
Mike Rigby talks to Dr Hugo Ford, clinical lead for the project and Director of Cancer Services at the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Shelly Thake, CEO of the Addenbrookes Charitable Trust, ACT4Addenbrookes!
Together, we'll discuss the importance of the planned hospital, discuss aligning our finest scientific minds on the problem of cancer and find out what we can all do to help with the fundraising effort.
This is a vitally important project and in by far the best place for the region and the nation to maximise the scientific expertise on the biomedical campus, throughout the city and the region as a whole.  
For more information on the project, visit: https://www.cambridgecancer.org.uk/. 
Find out more about the fundraising effort at: https://act4addenbrookes.org.uk/. 
You can listen to the Eastern Promise back-catalogue and contact us by visiting https://easternpromise.org.uk. 
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.     

Episode 129: Norwich FIG & Save Britain's Heritage Conferences 2025

This Week: We join two conferences in the heart of Norwich; first, the Norwich Financial Industry Group (FIG) met in Aviva's iconic Marble Hall to discuss the ramifications of AI for FinTech and the financial sector. Speakers Ash Black and Nathan Punter of Coder explain how AI can boost the Norwich Financial Cluster.
Then!  Oh, but then, your host Mike Rigby is joined on the streets of Norwich by Director of Save Britain's Heritage, Henrietta Billings, to preview the charity's upcoming annual conference on 15th May 2025 in the Kings Centre, on King Street in Norwich.  
We run down the speakers and panels, as well as discussing the conference's key theme: delivering good growth in heritage locations - and what better place or time to discuss it than sat outside with a coffee on Gentleman's Walk on a sunny Wednesday morning in April?  
Nope, there isn't one.  
For more details and to get tickets to the Save Britain's Heritage Annual Conference, click here. 
For more information on Norwich FIG click here.
To find out more about Eastern Promise podcast, including our back catalogue and contact form, visit our website at https://easternpromise.org.uk.  Alternatively,  email us at: podcast@easternpromise.org.uk. 
Eastern Promise are proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.

Episode 128: Jack Abbott MP - Missions Champion for the East and MP for Ipswich

This Week: Direct from  the James Hehir Building of the University of Suffolk, Mike Rigby chats with Jack Abbott MP, Member of Parliament for Ipswich and the Government's Missions Champion for the East of England.  
Jack shares what that role means in practice, his road to Parliament, his maiden speech, why all the policemen and doorkeepers already knew his name, and his hopes for the future of Ipswich and of Suffolk, as both and MP and a local boy.  
It's a fascinating glimpse 'behind the Speaker's Chair' from a unique perspective.  
For more information about Jack, including his contributions to debates, visit the House of Commons website here or his own website, https://www.jackabbott.org/.    
For more information on Eastern Promise, including our back catalogue, visit https://easternpromise.org.uk. 
Eastern Promise is proud to be supported by Mills & Reeve.