6 September 2010
The government has received almost 50 bids from councils and businesses hoping to form Local Enterprise Partnerships, according to ministers.
Today is the deadline for proposals to form LEPs, which will replace regional development agencies in England. A full list of bids is due to be published tomorrow.
Writing ahead of this in the Financial Times, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and Business Secretary Vince Cable said they had received almost 50 bids so far, although the final number would not be known until the end of today.
The new bodies would ‘radically reshape’ the way business and government work together at the local level, the ministers said. ‘It marks a sharp break from the top-down, politically driven regional policy of the last government.’
Successful bids would be those with ‘the strongest commitment to enterprise and to working in partnership’, they added. The resulting bodies would be ‘as varied as England itself, reflecting the diverse circumstances and strengths around the country’.
Bids so far are reported to include cities such as Greater Manchester and Leeds; counties such as Cumbria and Hertfordshire; and cross-regional areas such as Kent, Essex and the Thames Gateway.
But experts warned that rigorous scrutiny should be applied to all LEP applications.
Miles Templeman, director general of the Institute of Directors, said: ‘There should be no rush to grant permission to every proposal received.’ There was mounting concern that in some areas the views of business were not being taken into account, he added. ‘We believe that each proposed LEP should go ahead only if it has critical mass in terms of size, is supported by the vast majority of business bodies based locally, and is focused on the issues of transport, infrastructure and planning development.’
The Institute for Public Policy Research said LEPs would be ‘in the vanguard of sub-national economic development’. It called for the bodies to meet a series of tests outlined in a paper published today.
IPPR North director Ed Cox said: ‘It is vital that they are strong and powerful bodies that are able to make a real contribution not only to economic development but also to advance the causes of localism and social justice.’
