Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has applauded a successful Kent businessman for encouraging entrepreneurs.

Peter Cullum, founder of Maidstone-based Towergate Insurance Group, has invested £11 million in The Peter Cullum Centre of Entrepreneurship at Cass Business School in London.

Lord Mandelson opened the centre last night and said Mr Cullum’s desire to help the next generation of entrepreneurs was "an inspiration and I thank him very warmly on behalf of the Government for his generosity."

The new centre will encourage entrepreneurship and provide funding - between £50,000 and £500,000 - to help people with good ideas to develop their commercial potential.

Centre chair Nick Badman said: "We are entering a very exciting era in which to be an entrepreneur and a very exciting era for entrepreneurship."

Mr Cullum, from Sevenoaks, was an MBA student at the business school in 1974. He said he wanted the centre to help entrepreneurs from Kent as well as elsewhere, and people of all ages. It would specifically help smaller enterprises. "We all have an obligation to give somethig back and this is my way of trying to say thankyou," he said.