Member Article

Sheffield City Region asks government for another £38 million boost

Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) officially asked the Government for an additional £38 million to further boost economic growth and create jobs in the area.

The LEP is looking to secure this additional funding from the Government’s Local Growth Fund which handed out £2 billion in its first wave of ‘Growth Deals’ to city regions in July this year.

The LEP secured £325 million from the first wave of funding – an amount which will create over 28,000 jobs and training for 40,000 people. This was the fifth most substantial Growth Deal that any City Region made with Government out of the 39 LEP areas across England.

This additional £38 million would enable the LEP to progress a range of initiatives more quickly and effectively, as well as adding some additional projects to its arsenal of activity aimed at boosting economic growth and creating jobs in the City Region.

The additional funding would enable the LEP to extend and accelerate the hugely successful RGF Programme Fund to support more local businesses with robust plans for growth in 2015, start building work on a Rail Engineering Academy in Doncaster, support over 2,000 businesses in the Sheffield City Region to start exporting to overseas markets and build five new business units on the Sheffield City Region Enterprise Zone which will help to meet the growing demands from investors for premises to move into quickly and easily

James Newman, Chairman of Sheffield City Region LEP, said: “Earlier this year, our LEP achieved the fifth biggest deal with Government of all areas in England. We achieved this because our leaders worked closely together to put forward a very compelling offer.

“However, as I said at the time, this was only the first small step on a journey to take control of our City Region’s economic destiny.

“Once again, we have put forward an incredibly strong offer to Government which will enable our City Region to take another step towards creating the 70,000 jobs and 6,000 new businesses that we set out in our vision.

“I hope Government will take notice and devolve the funding and powers we need to make these important projects a reality.”

Councillor Sir Stephen Houghton CBE, chair of the Sheffield City Region Combined Authority, said: “The Sheffield City Region has proved that it has the strong governance and processes in place to use government funding effectively to create jobs for local people.

“When they assess our bid, I hope civil servants and Ministers will look for the best possible return on investment. If that is the case, I have no doubt that they will want to award the maximum amount possible to fund our bid.

“This additional funding will enable us to further develop major skills, transport and infrastructure programmes. It will also enable us to extend our highly successful RGF and business support programmes to benefit even more businesses in our City Region.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .