BLACK COUNTRY LOCAL ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP MEETING OF THE PARTNERSHIP BOARD Monday 24th April 2017 at 3.00pm at Dudley College, The Broadway, Dudley APPENDICES SCHEDULE No Item Presenter Report Appendices 4 Policy Update SM Yes Yes • Housing Strategy 1. Annex: Industrial Strategy Extract - Housing Commentary 2. June Policy Away Day 5 Industrial Strategy responses SM Yes Yes 3. BC LEP 4. WMCA 5. WM LEP Chairs 6. Midlands Engine 7. LEP Network 10b Draft - Towards an Active Black Country SH Yes Yes 13 PR, Communications and Annual Conference Comms Yes Yes update Board Member 8. PR Coverage – January 2017 9. PR Coverage – February 2017 10. BC Annual Economic Review 2017 Twitter Campaign Analysis 11. BC Annual Conference 2017 Twitter Campaign Analysis 18 12. Black Country Consortium Business Plan SM Yes Yes 2017/19 (Not Public) 1 Black Country Garden City: (http://www.blackcountrylep.co.uk/regional-growth/black-country- garden-city/) The Black Country LEP, along with the four Black Country local authorities and the Homes & Communities Agency are working together to create a new 21st Century Garden City in the centre of England, which will connect into existing communities and infrastructure. This Garden City vision will utilise existing green, cultural and economic assets to develop attractive places where people want to live, transforming the reality and perception of the Black Country. There is an opportunity to lever £6 billion of investment and deliver 45,000 new homes over the next 10 years, by intelligently applying the garden city principles: Well connected communities by car, public transport, cycling and walking Green streets and easy access to green space Mixed use, mixed tenure and mixed density attractive neighbourhoods Chances for engaging the local community Space for enterprise and creative industries to flourish This prospectus has both raised the profile of the area with investors and provided a focus for our action to accelerate house building. Garden City principles include the extended use of off-site construction in order for us to build homes faster (the image below is an example of this reality in West Bromwich). 38 Our Future Priorities Making sure there is a sufficient supply of homes, transport to link homes & Opportunities and infrastructure to support communities is of critical importance to achieving economic growth. Extended use of off-site construction for faster building rates, as a part of adopting Black Country Garden City principles. Alongside this there will need to be an emphasis on the importance of growing skills capacity to meet the demand of offsite methods, plus the indirect skills demands this will drive (such as tower crane operators). Therefore, the rounded implications of a shift towards offsite manufacturing needs to be considered. The West Midlands Land Commission emphasises a need to prioritise: measures to tackle delivery, an expanded programme of regeneration and remediation of brownfield sites, strategic review of the Green Belt, and better engagement both local and national organisations. Making the most of our Brownfield Research & Innovation Centre as part of our priority to enable site developments in the Black Country for homes and businesses. An essential task will be the completion of the Greater Birmingham and Black Country Housing Market Area strategic growth study. The focus of the study will be to consider growth options to deal with the baseline housing shortfall and to consider the housing implications of the growth proposed in the WMCA SEP. What Government 1) Government needs to recognise the links between housing, can do to help us infrastructure and the Industrial Strategy to provide a holistic place-based realise economic approach which can only be facilitated through further devolved powers. growth potential 2) The key barriers to economic growth at a local level are employment, skills and housing. Step changes in these areas will need to come through greater devolution and endowment of appropriate planning powers to the Combined Authority and mayor in order to provide a co-ordinated strategy for the region. 3) To support our work on brownfield land remediation, fiscal incentives, planning and development tools, and long-term financial instruments are ways in which this activity could be encouraged. 4) Support for our Black Country Garden City vision, giving us the best possible chance to succeed in our ambition. 5) Maximise the use of off-site construction in order to enable the required faster building rates. 39 Thoughts about the next Black Country LEP Board Awayday Context An important time: • General election with implications for government policy, industrial strategy etc • SEP refresh finished (or pretty much); • Newly elected Metro Mayor in post and WMCA Chief Exec appointed; • Brexit…… Need for the away day to have a different feel: • Same format for the last couple of years; • Some concerns at format after the last session; • Too many slides and too little discussion. The task Is this the question we want to session to explore: What does the Black Country need to do next in order to deliver the vision for the Black Country in the light of achievements to date, the current challenges and opportunities and the changing context? Preparing for the awayday We could seek contributions from the main groups that comprise the LEP in advance (250 word statements) and on the day (a short session – possibly crafting 140 character tweets). • The private sector board members (I could facilitate a session with them); • ABCA (would we ask the chief execs separately?) • Lowell Williams and Geoff Layer (I could have a telecon with them) • The Regen Directors The awayday It could run like this: 12.00 Lunch 12.20 Introductions and objectives 12.30 Updates – brisk 30 minute session on the context, the SEP, the WMCA, other current developments. No more than one slide per topic. 13.00 A business perspective – we make a real effort to get a good interesting local business person who can talk about the current context from her/his world. 13.20 The groups either review their statement and/or produce a new tweet. 13.35 The messages from the groups – each group speaks briefly to the contribution they produced, any emerging themes or areas of difference. 13.50 I ask people to form mixed groups of 3 or 4 (only one person from each “camp”). Each group has to identify 2 or 3 issues they think need to be discussed this afternoon in order to answer the question. Each issue to be written on a post-it-note. 14.10 Short break while I sort the ideas into four or five topics for small groups to work on. I announce the topics and people select a group to join. 14.25 Work in 4 or 5 small groups (as mixed as possible) each taking one of the topics. Each group make a small number of recommendations for the LEP to consider on what it should do next. 15.25 Exhibition of the groups’ recommendations so everybody can see what the other groups have recommended (without having a boring feedback session). 15.35 Final plenary session to discuss the ideas that emerged and agree next steps. 16.00 close 13th April 2017 The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy 1 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0ET Dear Greg, Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership response to the Industrial Strategy Green Paper The Black Country LEP welcomes the ambition and approach of the government’s new Industrial Strategy. Government has a role in creating the right conditions for prosperity, and we are pleased to see a priority for boosting productivity and achieving more balanced growth across the country. We share the government’s vision of an economy that serves everyone well. Black Country LEP will build on our economic strengths, exploit opportunities to drive growth and productivity locally, and overcome the barriers to achieving this. The attached document details the Black Country LEP response to the Industrial Strategy green paper. In developing this response, we have adopted a partnership approach: seeking the expertise and views from local partners to ensure an open, integrated and strong Black Country submission. Specifically, we’ve worked closely with the Black Country Colleges. The Black Country Colleges are strategic partners of the LEP, informing and influencing our shared agenda, and we have taken the opportunity to collaborate on this shared response. Within a long-term commitment of a place-based industrial strategy must be a long term replacement of European Structural and Investment Funds. As we leave the European Union, these funds, both capital and revenue, will be integral to drive economic development across the country. More specifically, in the Black Country we face a number of significant growth constraints. Our energy supply and markets, while driven by a history of excellence in innovation, are an enduring issue for our industry base. We want to work with government and industry partners to ensure positive changes to our energy infrastructure. There’s also a critical need to strengthen workforce skills at all levels and address skills mismatches, particularly relating to our five identified ‘transformational’ sectors. We need to maximise the potential of greater focus on technical education. To ensure our businesses have the best chance to grow, we need world-class infrastructure, effective access to finance and export support, the provision of an accessible innovation ecosystem, and, crucially, tools to plan and maintain the provision of employment land. These are all key Black Country specific issues that can be solved through the effective delivery of a local industrial strategy. We look forward to working with you, and strategic partners further as, together, we build a successful, long-term Industrial Strategy for the Black Country, and the whole of the UK.