MEDWAY is building on the talents of Zandra Rhodes and Karen Millen to become a hub of creative enterprise.

The place that nurtured these acclaimed fashion designers has a new one-stop shop near Sun Pier, Chatham, to encourage start-up and existing businesses involving design.

Medway Enterprise Gateway focuses on creative business and is working closely with Kent Institute of Art and Design (KIAD).

Medway is already home to some 750 businesses in the design and creative sector and the Gateway aims to help them grow.

But it also wants to help students and graduates implement their good ideas locally so that their businesses will take off and generate new jobs in the area.

The Gateway, backed by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), Medway council, Business Link Kent, KIAD and North Kent Chamber of Commerce, has just opened its doors for business.

SEEDA is injecting £250,000 over the next three years and others are together contributing a similar sum.

Backers, including Gateway "champion" Jay Choudhry, the award-winning businessman who founded hearing aid manufacturer Puretone on Medway City Estate, believe that half a million pounds will prove cost-effective in the quest for growing creative industry in Medway.

The Gateway is equipped with workstations, laptop computers and telephone links for would-be entrepreneurs to use. It is due to be open every day, including evenings and weekends. Membership is free.

Gateway director Alastair Dean, a design graduate previously with GlaxoSmithKline, said it was important to be user-friendly.

"We want to see this place buzzing and we want to see it buzzing not just with people who are setting up in businesses themselves but engaging businesses that are already established," he said.

He has already spoken to creative businesses in Chatham Historic Dockyard about mentoring new business people. "Medway has a lot going for it," Mr Dean added.

Medway Enterprise Gateway is one of 20 gateways being set up across the South East, four of them in Kent. Each will specialise in different sectors.

The Medway Enterprise Gateway can be contacted on 01634 848319.