Founder of Plusnet quits the LEP board

TECHNOLOGY entrepreneur Lee Strafford, who co-founded Yorkshire-headquartered broadband provider Plusnet, has resigned from the board of the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership.

Mr Strafford, the former chairman of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, has been a member of the LEP board since it began in December 2010.

LEPS were introduced to replace regional development agencies, which were abolished under the coalition Government. LEPs are partnerships between local authorities and businesses; their aim is to play a central role in determining local economic priorities and undertaking activities to drive economic growth and the creation of local jobs.

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The Sheffield LEP said Mr Strafford was due to finish his tenure this summer, following “a full review of LEP board membership”, but has decided to leave earlier “to pursue his many other interests”.

James Newman, Sheffield City Region LEP chairman, said: “Lee is an expert in the creative and digital industries and a leading business man and his commercial achievements, particularly as co-founder of Plusnet, testify this.

“His current work on the DotForge Accelerator, a programme to nurture and grow start-ups, is highly innovative and demonstrates his appetite for others to share his success as a digital entrepreneur. I am sad to see him leave, but I am sure he will continue to contribute to the City Region in the future.”

Mr Strafford recently spoke to the Yorkshire Post about how the UK’s technology sector can compete on the international stage.

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He said: “If we now change the flow of billions of pounds of public funds from one which goes through academia and then into the hands of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, to an approach of entrepreneurs and then into academia, we would leverage the full potential of the world-class engineering, entrepreneur and skill base we have in this country.”