EDG Property has joined some of the West Midlands top companies to become a ‘champion’ of one of the region’s leading networking organisations.

The Birmingham-based property company has become a member of Coventry and Warwickshire Champions alongside more than 100 organisations including the city’s universities, financial giants Barclays and Jaguar Land Rover.

The networking group was launched in 2012 as an initiative to help raise the profile of Coventry and Warwickshire, spearheaded by Les Ratcliffe, formally head of community relations for Jaguar Land Rover, who was recently awarded an MBE by the Queen.

The group holds regular networking events across the region with speakers from various sectors including business, sport and politics and it recently held its first event in Birmingham, which was attended by more than 300 business and civic leaders to hear an update about Coventry and Warwickshire.

Last month EDG Property was granted planning permission to transform the former Co-Op department store in the heart of Coventry into a landmark £15m residential development and EDG director Neil Edginton said he was delighted to be an advocate for a city with such an exciting future.

He said: “There is a really fantastic buzz around Coventry at the moment and you get a real sense of this when you attend an Champions event. There is huge positivity about the city’s potential and Champions is a great vehicle for people to make those important connections that make things happen.

“The Co-Operative is a major scheme for EDG Property and we are investing in the city in the long term with this project as well as being open to future opportunities because we truly believe that there is still much more to come from Coventry.

“This is our first project in the city and it is great to work with a local authority and other stakeholders with such a ‘can do’ attitude and we are looking forward to becoming part of that and doing what we can to promote the city as it continues on this upward curve and equally importantly as it strives to secure the Capital of Culture 2021 which would be a welcome and deserved accolade for the city.”