IT is good news that the LEP is not going easy on the EZs, and is applying for a scattering of them across the TV rather than only one.
Please forgive the acronyms, but Enterprise Zones (EZs) and the RGF (sorry – that’s Regional Growth Fund) are the most important parts of this Government’s bid to promote private enterprise in areas which are suffering most from public sector cutbacks.
Therefore, the Tees Valley (TV) Local Economic Partnership (LEP) is right to try and maximise the benefits across the whole area.
When Chancellor George Osborne announced that the TV would get an EZ in the Budget, many presumed that it would be a single geographical location. We argued that that would be too narrow, and that the EZ should look to boost certain sectors rather than just an area on the ground.
By putting forward eight sites which could together make up one EZ, the LEP is looking to boost the Tees Valley’s renewable energy, digital and advanced engineering sectors – sectors which have great potential.
This ingenious approach may have been borne partly out of local political necessity: if there had been only one location, four of the five local authority areas within the Tees Valley would have felt that they were missing out. This approach prevents that.
It will still be interesting to see if the EZs can be prevented from sucking in jobs and businesses from outside areas – if you were starting up a business, you would choose to do it at one of the eight sites where you could save thousands of pounds in business rates rather than anywhere else.
But it is so good to see the Tees Valley leading the way nationally in bidding for growth.
Now it is over to Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, to decide whether the TV LEP’s EZ approach gets three letters of approval: YES.
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