MEDWAY will be a "happening" place for hi-tech jobs and exciting new ventures if Philomena Lavery has her way.

Consultant Philomena has been hired for £300,000 to turn Medway and North Kent into a hub of innovation with a Cambridge-style appeal to cutting-edge entrepreneurs.

"North Kent is going to be the next happening place," she said. "In five years' time it will be all over the newspapers and we'll have nice cafes and more businesses."

Medway Campus Partnership, a group of local universities, Medway council, the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), Kent Institute of Art and Design (KIAD) and BAE Systems, hired her company, Veracity, and expects it to deliver.

Philomena will be tested on the number of jobs created, schools involved, firms spun out from universities, firms involved with local schools, businesses started and their survival rate.

She and Veracity will be paid £100,000 a year for three years from the Single Regeneration Budget. She says the fee was "substantially-discounted" because she wanted to do the work.

Surprisingly, the programme does not yet have a name, although it has been known under the working titles of North Kent Enterprise Network or Enterprise North Kent.

However, it follows a lead set by North Kent Success, a group that folded more than two years ago. The latest name and a new logo now being worked on by KIAD students will be unveiled later in the year.

Birmingham-born Philomena - aged 40 and mother of a two-year old son - now lives in Headcorn. She has worked in telecommunications since leaving university with a diploma in electronics and a degree in materials engineering. She is also a Master in Business Administration (MBA).

She defines her goal as "the production of a step change in the North Kent economy."

While the vision for Medway has been spelt out many times, she says Veracity is setting out the steps to achieve it.

"There's an opportunity here," she said. "It has no less attributes that other parts of the UK, what it hasn't got yet is something to put it all into action."

In five years' time, she hopes entrepreneurs in those chosen sectors will be as attracted to North Kent as to Cambridge or the Cote D'Azur.

She and husband James married at Lympne Castle in East Kent and moved from West London to Kent because they felt it was going to be a "happening" place. "What better thing to do than be part of it?" she said.