DCLG receives 56 bids to set up local enterprise partnerships

A total of 56 proposals for local enterprise partnerships were submitted in time for yesterday’s deadline, the Department for Communities and Local Government has revealed.

Ministers will now review the plans, with an emphasis on how they support economic growth.

Feedback will then be given ahead of publication of the government’s White Paper on sub-national economic growth and the introduction of the Localism Bill.

Ministers claimed that many of the proposals were “radical in their approach” and had put forward innovative ways of tackling the challenges facing individual local economies.

LEPs could “rewrite the economic geography of the country – unconstrained by the arbitrary boundaries of Regional Development Agencies and the top-down prescription approach taken previously”, the DCLG added.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles claimed the proposals were just the beginning of a new radical way of delivering prosperity and rebalancing the economy.

He said: "We are facing economic problems that need solutions from local communities. The secret to the success of local enterprise partnerships will be working on the basis of local economic geography – gone are the artificial political regions of RDAs – this will better serve the needs of local business.

"The bureaucracy of Regional Development Agencies gave local authorities little reason to engage creatively with economic issues. Local enterprise partnerships are a way of tying council and business interests together, and creating the conditions for business to thrive and prosper."

Business Secretary Vince Cable insisted that there must be genuine partnership between business and local government and that LEPs should be practical bodies for promoting enterprise, not talking shops.

He added: "Trade and investment promotion, sector leadership, innovation, business support and access to finance will in future be led nationally, though with devolved local management in many cases. This still leaves huge scope for local initiatives to promote enterprise.

“The outcome will vary just as local economic priorities differ across the country. In some areas, there might be a focus on skills. In others, local enterprise partnerships may help set priorities for planning and infrastructure decisions. The key is that these partnerships are built from the bottom-up and will have the flexibility to determine their own agenda, rather than have it handed down to them by Whitehall."

The government has also closed the consultation on the £1bn, two-year Regional Growth Fund, which is intended to provide support for projects that “offer significant potential for sustainable economic growth and can create new private sector jobs”.

Earlier this week the Institute of Directors insisted that only elected officials should occupy local authority positions on LEP boards. The IoD also called for a focus on transport, infrastructure and planning..

The full list of local enterprise partnership proposals is:

• Bexley, Dartford, and Gravesham
• Birmingham and Solihull with East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth
• Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole
• Brighton and Hove, Croydon, the Gatwick Diamond and West Sussex  - Coast to Capital
• Cheshire and Warrington
• County Durham
• Coventry and Warwickshire
• Cumbria
• Devon, Plymouth and Torbay
• East Anglia (Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and North Essex)
• East Sussex
• Empowering Enterprise - Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
• Enterprise M3 – Covers parts of Hampshire and Surrey including Andover, Basingstoke, Aldershot, Farnborough, Fleet, Hook and Camberley
• Fylde Coast, Lancashire
• Gatwick Diamond
• Gloucester, Swindon and Wiltshire
• Greater Cambridge & Greater Peterborough
• Greater Lincolnshire
• Greater Manchester
• Hampshire
• Heart of the South West
• Hertfordshire
• Hull, East Riding & Scarborough
• Humber
• Kent and Medway
• Kent-Essex
• Lancashire
• Leeds City Region
• Leicester and Leicestershire
• Liverpool City Region
• Newcastle Gateshead
• Norfolk
• North East
• Northamptonshire
• Northumberland and North Tyneside
• Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Derby and Derbyshire,
• Oxfordshire City Region
• Pennine Lancashire
• Sheffield City Region
• Solent
• South East Midlands
• South Somerset and East Devon
• South Tyneside and Sunderland
• Stoke-on -Trent and Staffordshire
• Surrey Connects
• Tees Valley
• Thames Valley Berkshire
• Thames Valley Buckinghamshire
• The Black Country
• The Marches Enterprise Partnership – Shropshire and Herefordshire
• The Peel Group – Atlantic Gateway – Liverpool and Manchester
• Visitor Economy Southern England
• West Midlands
• West of England
• Worcestershire
• York and North Yorkshire