As part of the
Autumn Statement to the House of Commons today, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the government will be allocating £556m in Local Growth Funding to the 11 LEPs in the Northern Powerhouse. It is the third round of this type of funding that is being used to grow the area’s economy.
As our Chairman Barry Dodd CBE blogged,
leveraging private sector investment and increasing productivity was a major theme behind our last Growth Deal which aspires to deliver 10,000 high value jobs, 5000 new homes and £500m in private sector investment to help grow our economy.
Our Chief Operating Officer James Farrar said: “We are looking forward to receiving specific details of our Local Growth Fund settlement which the Chancellor has said he will announce to all LEPs shortly and will help us deliver better jobs, more homes and new investment for our area.
“We are ready to build on our role as a proven route for the government to channel funds into the local area as it pledges to continued increases in infrastructure funding, and we also welcome the transport infrastructure investment through Transport for the North that will help drive through improvements in east west transport that we identified in our Strategic Economic Plan.
“We also welcome the extension of rural business rate relief to 100% on behalf of our business community, and we have written to the Secretary of State for Environment to stress the need for continued investment in rural mobile and broadband, as well as investments in the highest standards for broadband and 5G improvements.
“Overall, it is the third time we have bid for Local Growth Funding and we have already shown that we do so on time and to budget. In 2014 we set out an ambitious Growth Plan to government securing £122m of investment and we are delivering on our promises. Since our first Strategic Economic Plan, £1.7 billion has been created in growth and 29,000 new jobs –already exceeding our target of 20,000 new jobs by 2021.”
You can read our
Local Growth Deal 3 submission to government here.