LEP Column: Enterprise zones can unlock the doors to regional growth

There are currently 24 enterprise zones across England, and essentially they are part of the government’s long-term economic plan to support businesses to flourish and grow.

The idea is that enterprise zones will help attract more investment into our local economies, which in turn will bring more jobs.

Government are especially interested in creating centres of excellence, where businesses in one sector cluster together, so the zone excels in that sector, driving up competition and stimulating further growth.

The enterprise zones do this in a number of ways, one such way is by offering an incentive for businesses to move into the zone, and this is through giving business rate discounts to those located within the enterprise zone.

As well as this, having an “enterprise zone status” means that the government is committed to working actively with the local authorities for enterprise zones in order to help unblock and unlock any barriers there may be.

So for example, this could be infrastructure issues around transport – where the Department for Transport would be able to address the issues, or Defra may be involved if there were environmental issues or it could be that UK Trade and Investment may support marketing the enterprise zones to international investors.

So having this government stamp opens doors for both the areas within the enterprise zone and the businesses located there: they’re a good thing to have on your doorstep. So it’s not surprising that we’re keen for government to take on our recommendations to have more enterprise zones in our region.

Earlier in 2015 Yorkshire’s first food enterprise zone was given approval in Malton. This status helped stamp Malton’s place on the foodie map and we’re hoping to do that with the two recommendations we submitted on September 18. The LEP board heartily recommended two enterprise zones for our region; one for the City of York and the second was a Coast and Country bid.

The Yorkshire Coast and Country bid focused on the wonderful seaside resort of Bridlington, coupled with our foodie hotspot Malton and also included Pickering; forming an enterprise zone which makes the most of our rural and coastal assets.

The idea of this bid is to build on the growth plans we already have in place. As many of you will know from visiting Bridlington, it has been undergoing a fantastic transformation in recent years and these proposals build on that.

We want to further develop Bridlington providing more retail space and more office space as well as upgrading the harbour and marina, making them fit for 21st century. We have our sights on industrial land just outside of Bridlington which can be enhanced and further developed with the enterprise zone status.

As well as this, we can further build on the groundwork from the food enterprise zone in Malton and bring together more business space to maximise Malton’s potential by increasing its growth into food and agricultural businesses. The third part of the plan is Pickering, best known for its steam trains and a gateway to both the North York Moors and Dalby Forest.

Pickering already has an existing business park on Thornton Road and our plans look to build on that, ensuring the climate in Pickering is right for businesses to start, grow and flourish. As the LEP with the largest rural geography in England, you’d expect us to be banging the drum to government on increasing economic growth in rural areas. But that’s only one side of our patch’s coin.

As well as this, we’re proud to be involved in a bid with the City of York Council which has the potential to create up to 6,600 jobs in York between now and 2020.

This bid is interesting because the focus is – like our Coast and Country bid – focused on encouraging businesses to come to our Enterprise Zone and has the same incentives around business rates, but for the York bid, to enable that we also need to think about housing.

The enterprise zone status would support not only the incentives for businesses, but also enable new houses to be built on brownfield land – one of the largest city centre brownfield sites in Europe – while protecting the greenbelt.

York is already an attractive proposition for business; it is well positioned on the rail network, is an attractive place for people to come and move to, has the highest skill levels in the North of England and is well on to being the Cambridge of the North – as is our ambition. This enterprise zone bid would cement that work and make it easier and clearer for us to meet our ambitions.

I’m proud of both the bids we sent to government and feel quietly confident that both will interest government.

The potential for 6,600 jobs

The York central bid has the potential to create 6,600 jobs in the city, and over £1.1bn value for the region’s economy.

York has recently been named the best city in England and Wales to raise a family, according to the Family Hotspots report by OneFamily.

Malton already hosts a monthly food market in its town centre, is home to the Food Lovers’ festival and held a Game and Seafood festival earlier in September. The Food Enterprise Zone status Malton received in March 2015 is expected to bring another 500 jobs to the area.