A fresh start for rural areas

Yet, while the Prime Minister maintains that the fledgling local enterprise partnerships will be as effective as the regional development agencies now being disbanded, there is a bias towards large conurbations.

And when Barry Dodd, the chairman of the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding LEP which straddles urban and rural communities, says there is the problem, then Mr Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne should take note.

For, while the 23 new enterprise zones created by the Government have been welcomed by the communities where they are located, they are predominantly city-based.

However this overlooks the fact that there are large pockets of deprivation in the countryside and that a landmark report in 2008 outlined the “untapped potential” of rural areas like North Yorkshire.

Mr Dodd is not suggesting a major overhaul of policy. Quite the opposite. He wants Enterprise Networks to be set up in the countryside to co-ordinate the specific challenges facing small towns and surrounding villages.

In short, it is a simple means to help create new jobs that are vital to sustaining such areas in the longer term and reducing the likelihood of more people becoming dependent on welfare benefits.

With transport also a key issue, and yet another report revealing today the extent to which Yorkshire is being shortchanged by the Government, much will rest on Mr Osborne’s growth review later this month.

And he will need to be far more dynamic than officials at Defra who, after reviewing the role of LEPs to date, concluded that they had to find ways “to create the right conditions for businesses to succeed”.

A statement of the obvious, it does not take account of the extent to which the mechanics of the Government’s new approach to regeneration threatens to marginalise the countryside even further. In short, Ministers need to listen to the legitimate concerns of those on the ground who are tasked with implementing the coalition’s growth strategy.