LAST week, the Government announced 11 new Enterprise Zones across the UK.
It is a move that aims to drive growth and innovation among early-stage businesses by offering simplified planning rules, super-fast broadband and tax breaks for companies.
The Chancellor, who launched the first zones as part of the 2011 Budget in March, said 30,000 new jobs would be created by 2015 by supporting economic development in local enterprise partnership areas such as Liverpool, Warrington, Cheshire and Greater Manchester.
However, previous Enterprise Zones introduced by Margaret Thatcher and John Major in the 1980s and 1990s respectively, could fuel an argument that jobs created could simply be displaced from other areas, and that the cost of setting up the zones could outweigh the economic benefits.
In addition, a Work Foundation report suggested that zones typically provided only a three-year boost to an area, and therefore lack sustainable growth.
Investment in Enterprise Zones is definitely welcome, but it’s difficult to imagine this will meet the economic and job creation goals the Government is seeking within the next four years, especially as detail around some of the Enterprise Zones is patchy.
Obviously, there are two Enterprise Zones identified in Merseyside that will cover major regeneration projects.
They are Liverpool Waters and Wirral Waters.
So, as a business operating in this area, our hope is that they will be a success this time round.
The aim is that designation as a zone will help to accelerate delivery of these developments, contribute to the Liverpool superport plans and attract much-needed investment and jobs to the region.
Whether, in the long term, the Enterprise Zones are a success or not, the impact of being involved in this legislation cannot be undervalued or ignored.
It has brought two key schemes onto a national stage and provided our LEP with a springboard for private sector growth and wider regeneration.
The Government has given the region an opportunity. It’s now down to us to make it work.
