Speeding up growth plans

There have already been a plethora of announcements from the Lib Dem conferences on new policies to kickstart the economy, with Nick Clegg among those who have highlighted the importance of capital projects. It will be the same when the Conservatives gather in 10 days time.

The challenge is turning the rhetoric into reality, given that just one of the 45 schemes that are due to benefit from the Growth Fund’s first phase have passed the necessary due diligence checks and so forth.

That this exercise is due to be completed, in its entirety, by the autumn suggests that there was merit when Lord Heseltine, the former Deputy Prime Minister, criticised the Government for prematurely winding up the regional development agencies like Yorkshire Forward.

Sir Ian says that there is nothing wrong in principle with the Growth Fund – it is the “frustrating” length of time that it is taking to advance schemes that will assist the recovery.

This is particularly pertinent in Bradford where Growth Fund money holds the key to the city’s regeneration after it missed out on Enterprise Zone status in favour of a scheme centred on the Lower Aire Valley. They’re not just frustrated. They’re exasperated at Bradford’s stalled regeneration schemes and, specifically, the cavernous hole in the heart of the city where the much-delayed Westfield shopping complex was supposed to have been built by now.

Yet, while this site remains a symbol of economic failure which politicians are belatedly promising to investigate, Bradford should not be staking its whole future on the outcome of one retail scheme that has already been in abeyance for years because of the fragile economy.

It requires a wide range of enterprise and educational projects to help all sections of society, and the challenge for Sir Ian, and others, is ensuring that this happens sooner rather than later.