News: Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership proposal submitted
Rotherham could become a National Advanced Engineering and Manufacturing Growth Hub under proposals put forward by the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership.
Representatives from local authorities and local business leaders submitted proposals to the government last week in order to establish the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership.
Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are the government's new model to promote economic development. Their functions, governance, funding arrangements and responsibilities, including possible transfer of functions from Regional Development Agencies, are being developed and consultation is underway.
The intention is that LEPs will provide the strategic leadership required to set out local economic priorities, and better reflect the natural economic geography of the areas they serve.
The Sheffield City Region LEP's vision is for the "Sheffield City Region to make a greater contribution to the UK economy by having a local economy less dependent on the public sector, providing conditions for businesses to grow and by giving the nation its prime centre for advanced manufacturing and materials, and low carbon industries. It will offer people a great place in which to live, work, invest and visit."
The proposal outlines the main growth areas in the city region, the challenges that remain and what the partnership needs to do in order to grow the economy.
The partnership's objectives focus on the economy and skills (business support, sector development, inward investment, employer-led skills system) and infrastructure, transport and housing (key development sites, strategic transport links, sustainability, broadband, housing growth).
As a lean operation, partners will use existing powers and resources to achieve the vision with delivery either through existing private or public sector organisations, using existing bodies and structures more efficiently or creating new delivery mechanisms if they do not exist, but only if absolutely necessary.
The proposal states that the property assets of Yorkshire Forward that are of City Region economic significance would be developed by the LEP but direct ownership would rest with the appropriate local authorities, for example the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.
Also included are proposals that would see the region designated the UK centre for advanced manufacturing.
The LEP will work with the government to establish a National Advanced Engineering and Manufacturing Growth Hub that will drive economic growth in the manufacturing sector nationally, and as a consequence deliver GVA and employment growth in the UK as well as within the SCR. The Hub would be located at the Advanced Manufacturing Park at Waverley.
In addition, an Advanced Manufacturing Apprenticeship programme would be developed.
The plan also highlights Waverley, the Don Valley and the Dearne Valley in Rotherham as key development sites and that the LEP will work to unlock their regeneration and economic potential.
To oversee the proposals, a board of 15 would be established in November made up of a private sector chair and six private sector individuals, six local authority Leaders (Barnsley MBC, Bassetlaw DC, Chesterfield BC, North East Derbyshire DC, Rotherham MBC, Sheffield City Council); the Mayor of Doncaster and a University Vice-Chancellor. In addition, the local authorities of Bolsover DC, Derbyshire Dales DC and the Peak District National Park Authority would be associate members.
Rotherham organisations and businesses involved in the bid, or that support the principles include: AESSEAL, Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber, Bramall Construction, Bromley Technologies, Business and Education South Yorkshire, Corus, Fripp Design and Research, NAMTEC, Newburgh Engineering, Pyronix Ltd and Rotherham Youth Enterprise.
In the forward of the proposal, James Newman, Master Cutler said: "The City Region has managed to continually re-invent itself following the devastation of much of its manufacturing industries, steel and coal, during the latter part of the twentieth century.
"It has not only managed to retain many of its inherited skills and technology but has been able to attract and develop, from scratch, many new twenty-first century industries into the area making very successful use of the UK Government and European funding, which has been made available over the last thirty years.
"Much of this has been achieved through organised or loose partnerships between the key industrial and academic leaders working together with the local authorities and other public sector organisations for the mutual benefit of the SCR.
"Important personal relationships and ways of working together have been formed over this period which, with the formation of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), can now be further developed and improved to achieve not only central Government aims but realise local ambitions at the same time."
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: "Local enterprise partnership proposals are just the beginning of a new radical way of delivering prosperity and rebalancing the economy.
"The bureaucracy of Regional Development Agencies gave local authorities little reason to engage creatively with economic issues. Local enterprise partnerships are a way of tying council and business interests together, and creating the conditions for business to thrive and prosper."
Sheffield City Region website
Representatives from local authorities and local business leaders submitted proposals to the government last week in order to establish the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership.
Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are the government's new model to promote economic development. Their functions, governance, funding arrangements and responsibilities, including possible transfer of functions from Regional Development Agencies, are being developed and consultation is underway.
The intention is that LEPs will provide the strategic leadership required to set out local economic priorities, and better reflect the natural economic geography of the areas they serve.
The Sheffield City Region LEP's vision is for the "Sheffield City Region to make a greater contribution to the UK economy by having a local economy less dependent on the public sector, providing conditions for businesses to grow and by giving the nation its prime centre for advanced manufacturing and materials, and low carbon industries. It will offer people a great place in which to live, work, invest and visit."
The proposal outlines the main growth areas in the city region, the challenges that remain and what the partnership needs to do in order to grow the economy.
The partnership's objectives focus on the economy and skills (business support, sector development, inward investment, employer-led skills system) and infrastructure, transport and housing (key development sites, strategic transport links, sustainability, broadband, housing growth).
As a lean operation, partners will use existing powers and resources to achieve the vision with delivery either through existing private or public sector organisations, using existing bodies and structures more efficiently or creating new delivery mechanisms if they do not exist, but only if absolutely necessary.
The proposal states that the property assets of Yorkshire Forward that are of City Region economic significance would be developed by the LEP but direct ownership would rest with the appropriate local authorities, for example the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.
Also included are proposals that would see the region designated the UK centre for advanced manufacturing.
The LEP will work with the government to establish a National Advanced Engineering and Manufacturing Growth Hub that will drive economic growth in the manufacturing sector nationally, and as a consequence deliver GVA and employment growth in the UK as well as within the SCR. The Hub would be located at the Advanced Manufacturing Park at Waverley.
In addition, an Advanced Manufacturing Apprenticeship programme would be developed.
The plan also highlights Waverley, the Don Valley and the Dearne Valley in Rotherham as key development sites and that the LEP will work to unlock their regeneration and economic potential.
To oversee the proposals, a board of 15 would be established in November made up of a private sector chair and six private sector individuals, six local authority Leaders (Barnsley MBC, Bassetlaw DC, Chesterfield BC, North East Derbyshire DC, Rotherham MBC, Sheffield City Council); the Mayor of Doncaster and a University Vice-Chancellor. In addition, the local authorities of Bolsover DC, Derbyshire Dales DC and the Peak District National Park Authority would be associate members.
Rotherham organisations and businesses involved in the bid, or that support the principles include: AESSEAL, Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber, Bramall Construction, Bromley Technologies, Business and Education South Yorkshire, Corus, Fripp Design and Research, NAMTEC, Newburgh Engineering, Pyronix Ltd and Rotherham Youth Enterprise.
In the forward of the proposal, James Newman, Master Cutler said: "The City Region has managed to continually re-invent itself following the devastation of much of its manufacturing industries, steel and coal, during the latter part of the twentieth century.
"It has not only managed to retain many of its inherited skills and technology but has been able to attract and develop, from scratch, many new twenty-first century industries into the area making very successful use of the UK Government and European funding, which has been made available over the last thirty years.
"Much of this has been achieved through organised or loose partnerships between the key industrial and academic leaders working together with the local authorities and other public sector organisations for the mutual benefit of the SCR.
"Important personal relationships and ways of working together have been formed over this period which, with the formation of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), can now be further developed and improved to achieve not only central Government aims but realise local ambitions at the same time."
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: "Local enterprise partnership proposals are just the beginning of a new radical way of delivering prosperity and rebalancing the economy.
"The bureaucracy of Regional Development Agencies gave local authorities little reason to engage creatively with economic issues. Local enterprise partnerships are a way of tying council and business interests together, and creating the conditions for business to thrive and prosper."
Sheffield City Region website
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