Enterprise plan ‘doomed to fail’ without funding

Peter Box, leader of Wakefield Council and chair of the Leeds City Region leaders board, warned the region is losing out in key areas of public spending and these “inequalities must be addressed urgently”.

Coun Box was a speaker at the Leeds City Region summit yesterday, attended by more than 700 delegates from the public and private sector.

Launched under the banner “Realising the potential – our plan for growth”, the event outlined the key priorities for turning around the economic crisis, such as capitalising on manufacturing opportunities in green technologies.

However, Coun Box said for the Leeds City Region LEP to succeed, the Government must address the “stark, historic inequalities in the distribution of public funding”.

Speaking to the Yorkshire Post, he warned that more than a fifth of households in the North are workless, 20 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds are out of work or training, performance in either exports or inward investment is lower than the South and their research had revealed development in the city region was “unviable” without support in these areas.

“It is a huge funding gap in terms of housing, transport and skills,” he said. “We cannot simply be playing catch up all the time.

“We are not asking for more money – we are simply asking that the money that is in the national pot is allocated fairly.

“Much like the regional development agencies, the LEP is a body that is developing a strategic view of what needs to be done in the city region. The big difference is that the RDAs were actually given cash, the LEP has not.”

Coun Box said he was supporting the Yorkshire Post campaign Fair Deal for Yorkshire, which is calling for a more even spread of Government spending,

“Now the LEP has outlined the plans for growth the key question is will we be given the funds to deliver it,” he said.”

The LEP is already under pressure amid claims of tension following the decision to allocate a government Enterprise Zone to south-east Leeds ahead of Bradford city centre.

Sources have said wounds following the clash are yet to be healed and further concerns were raised yesterday by Bradford East MP David Ward, who called for more voices representing his city’s business sector on the LEP board.

Keynote speaker at the summit was Business Minister Mark Prisk, who denied Yorkshire was losing out in terms of public funding and claimed the Leeds City Region had the potential to be a “player in the world economy”.

“We are determined to make sure that Yorkshire not only is, but continues to get, a fair deal,” he said. “The ambition is not to say what are they doing on the other side of the Pennines in Manchester, but to be thinking about the competition on the world stage, to be competing with Milan or Bilbao.

“I am confident that the LEPs will have the confidence themselves and the ambition to be able to pick up the cudgels and be able to lead on making sure that, as the plan says, you realise your potential.”

The event highlighted a number of the LEPs’ achievements including securing £16m of public funding, securing the enterprise zone which is estimated to be worth more than £500m to the local economy and winning funding for super-fast broadband.

Chairman Neil McLean admitted the economic challenges could get greater depending on the national recovery, but was confident the Leeds City Region would recover strongly.

Opening the conference, he said: “This is not a five-minute fix. This is an opportunity to really change the future economic direction of the city region.”