Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14 LANCASHIRE ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP April 2013 Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14 Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14
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Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14 LANCASHIRE ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP April 2013 Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14 Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14 Foreword Welcome to the Lancashire Growth Plan, which Further evidence of the Board’s focus is that it sets out how the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership has committed all of its Growing Places Fund intends to achieve strong and sustainable allocation at the time of writing. We can now begin economic growth. In describing the scale of our focusing on developing a further pipeline of key ambition and highlighting some of the significant developments. activities already underway, it should provide great Lancashire’s Business Growth Hub will be launched encouragement to all who share our passion for in May and become the one stop shop for SMEs the county. and small businesses looking to find support for The opportunity for growth here is tremendous growth. It is anticipated that 250 businesses will and, to harness that potential, the Lancashire be assisted as early as the autumn of 2013. Enterprise Partnership has been rigorous and Meanwhile the project to deliver Superfast pragmatic since its inception in creating the Broadband into Lancashire is now on stream and is conditions for success. The journey began with intended to have far reaching effects for both large developing the functionality of the Board, with a businesses and those situated in remote areas of strong emphasis on pulling together the private the county where growth has been constrained. sector and the three primary public authorities into With 97% coverage in the next few years, a cohesive body that promotes economic growth. Lancashire will be well ahead of the game. In doing so, the Board has been swift to take These are but a few of the initiatives which are account of the diverse economic drivers in described within these pages and which feed off Lancashire and enable private sector directors the stimulus created by Lord Heseltine’s plan for to specialise and work closely with officers in a growth, “No Stone Unturned”. number of key areas, particularly: As the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership looks • Lancashire Enterprise Zone forward to the years ahead, it will continue to • Preston and Lancashire City Deal adjust and adapt to economic conditions and the • European Funding opportunities that arise. In partnership with the • Inward Investment & Strategic Development key authorities, it will do its utmost to promote • Sector Development & Supply Chains an enthusiasm for industry in a quest to make • Skills Lancashire an even better place to live and work. • Higher Education & Innovation • Business Support & SMEs • Lobbying & Communication • Strategic Transport While these building blocks are essential to delivering our Growth Plan, it is the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership’s early successes that offer a more vivid sign of our intent, not least with the creation of two linked Enterprise Zone sites in collaboration with BAE Systems. No time has been wasted in establishing streamlined planning processes and putting a governing body in place Edwin Booth to oversee the development of what has become a Chairman world class opportunity for advanced engineering Lancashire Enterprise Partnership and manufacturing. Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14 Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14 Context for Change Established in April 2011, the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership (LEP) was one of the last Enterprise Partnerships to be agreed by Government and is now recognised nationally as one of the strongest performing. Chaired by Edwin Booth, Chairman of E H Booth & Co Ltd, the LEP is a business-led Board represented by some of Lancashire’s largest and most dynamic companies, with a shared commitment to establishing a single economic voice for the area. To provide the necessary balance the Board also includes key political representation from the county council and Lancashire’s two unitary authorities. A major force for change, the LEP is dedicated to driving local growth through the delivery of a number of strategic economic priorities and national initiatives, with a focus on securing prosperity for the whole of Lancashire. This first Lancashire Growth Plan provides the strategic framework that will guide and underpin the LEP’s economic investment priorities and actions up to 2015. It will also position the LEP to engage positively with Government in its negotiations around multi-year European Structural and Investment Funds from 2014 and Single Local Growth Fund allocations from 2015 onwards, as the recommendations in Lord Heseltine’s Growth Review are implemented. Finally, the Growth Plan consolidates the LEP’s progress, early achievements and new ways of working, by clearly articulating its purpose and the key economic outcomes it intends to deliver by 2023. 2 1 Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14 Lancashire Growth Plan 2013/14 A Clear Sense of Purpose The LEP is making strong progress in Oversee and develop complementary Local Refocus the local skills system to make it identifying key opportunities and challenges, Growth Accelerator Strategies, focused on more responsive to business skills demands. At its inception, the LEP commissioned a high- and has demonstrated a real commitment delivering change at the sub-area level in The LEP’s Skills Board will develop an agreed level review of economic priorities.1 Professor to delivering economic change. However, Lancashire, with the aim of creating economic skills plan with clear priorities in 2013/14, Michael Parkinson’s work identified that the we recognise it is important for new partners opportunities for local communities in acute which will better align adult skills funding LEP’s focus should be on those issues and and local stakeholders to also understand need. and national initiatives such as Employer priorities which are central to Lancashire’s and share the LEP’s programme of action. Ownership of Skills. The Skills Plan will economic success, ensuring that at all times Our Growth Plan provides the opportunity to Develop Sector Delivery Plans to unlock also strengthen linkages between centres it remains pro-growth, strategic and forward articulate the LEP’s agenda for change. opportunities of national significance of excellence to help address current and looking in its decision-making and actions. in emerging and established growth emerging skill demands in Lancashire. The LEP’s purpose and focus is to: sectors, with the potential to create new This independent analysis also recommended investment, business growth and employment Ensure Lancashire’s major transport projects the LEP should support opportunities which Establish Lancashire as a natural home for opportunities. For example, Lancashire has are fully aligned with the delivery of key maximise jobs and growth, wherever those high growth companies, with a clear focus on a major contribution to make in helping economic priorities. The LEP, in conjunction opportunities are located in Lancashire, maximising the competitive strengths of the to deliver the nation’s nuclear energy and with Lancashire’s three local transport whilst ensuring that the benefits of such local economy. A strong and vibrant private low carbon strategies. The rural economy authorities, has established Transport for opportunities are accessible across the county sector business-base is critical to the future of Lancashire also has strong growth Lancashire, and will agree major transport in order to maximise the collective impact economic success of Lancashire. characteristics, unlike many other rural areas investment priorities by summer 2013, which and contribute positively to national growth Reclaim Lancashire’s role as one of in England, but its economic potential is will be underpinned by local Transport targets. the nation’s key centres for advanced still to be fully realised. Lancashire’s visitor Master Plans. manufacturing, fully realising the economic economy attracts more visitors than the These guiding principles, which underpin the Lake District, but its value and profile can be Strengthen Lancashire’s strategic case- LEP’s decision-making process and drive its potential of Lancashire’s aerospace and making and refresh the area’s offer to attract advanced engineering and manufacturing significantly improved. Subject to regulatory action planning, were fully endorsed by the clearances, the LEP will also work with key new investors and businesses. Lancashire Board in October 2011. sector (AEM), and its supply chains, which are has a global reputation and track record of amongst the strongest and most significant in business partners and investors to capture the economic benefit of local shale gas reserves, innovation and industrial excellence, but until In November 2012, after 18 months of the UK. recently the area has collectively failed to operation, private sector Board Directors which are amongst the largest in Europe. Maximise the economic value and benefits promote a coherent sense of purpose. The participated in a facilitated review of the Create the right local conditions for business LEP, as the economic voice for Lancashire, will LEP, at the request of the Chairman. The of an emerging arc of innovation across Lancashire, which links world class clusters success. Superfast Lancashire and the work with Government to develop a shared review agreed the Board is functioning Lancashire Business Growth Hub are key understanding of its key priorities and actions, well and that the economic priorities and of industry, technological development and research