The Midlands’s local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) are “coming of age” following the more than £1bn awarded to the organisations by the government in a series of growth deals.
Representatives from the LEPs gathered at an Insider round table to dissect how to attract further investment, deal with more accountability and gear up for the delivery of the major projects outlines in their Strategic Economic Plans (SEP).
In July (2014), the government announced the first £6bn wave of Growth Deals across the UK’s 39 LEPs to go towards providing support for businesses to train young people, create thousands of jobs, build thousands of houses and start hundreds of infrastructure projects.
Projects given the go ahead in the Midlands included money for Birmingham to help the city make the most of HS2, a new engineering training facility at the MIRA Technology Park and an expansion to Biocity in Nottingham.
David Ralph, D2N2 chief executive, said: “We’re using the phase ‘coming of age’ of the LEPs. We’re shifting from a planning to a delivery model because of the large funds we all now have. And that means the LEPs have to change in terms of structure, skill sets and staff.”
Source: Insider News
