Hoping to land a knockout punch - council partner is sponsoring Irish middleweight boxer

Caoimhin Agyarko - sponsorship arrangement

ONE of North East Lincolnshire Council's commercial partners is helping to fund the career of an up-and-coming 25-year-old Irish boxer.

It has emerged that Queensberry, one of the firms NELC is paying to run Grimsby's Freshney Place shopping centre, is sponsoring  Belfast-based  middleweight Caoimhin Agyarko - also known as as Black Thunder.

 

Says Queensberry: "We’ve been sponsoring Caoimhin’s career since he turned professional in 2018.

"We wanted to support grass roots sporting talent from a city we know, love and believe in."

It is not known if, outside the ring, the boxer will be punching for Grimsby, but there is a chance he may put in an appearance if it helps to promote Freshney Place.

Queensberry's local role, in the meantime, is asset management - shorthand for dealing with leases, tenancies and commercial use of the space. 

Says the firm's chief executive, Paul Sargent : "We understand the impact of great design on community wellbeing. 

Paul Sargent - keen to make the world a better place

                                                                       

"We seek to improve the quality of the towns and cities we live in by actively being involved in their physical and economic transformation.

"We want to share our knowledge, our vision and our love of what we do - we genuinely want to make the world a better place to live in."

As an additional Freshney Place partner, NELC has engaged Montagu Evans to oversee maintenance of infrastructure management andd security.

No details have been released about how much the two firms are being paid by the council.

Both appointments are on a temporary short-term basis pending further consideration of  longer-term arrangements.

The leader of NELC, Cllr Philip Jackson, says the authority, which bought Freshney Place earlier this year, will "retain overall control of the strategic direction of the shopping centre".