Twenty-one new 'enterprise zones'- with significant planning, tax and business rate powers - will be established to help kick-start sub-national economic growth, chancellor George Osborne’s Budget has revealed.
Following weeks of speculation about the design of the new zones, Mr Osborne announced on 23 March that he has selected ten areas that will operate the first wave, and made public his desire to link the new zones to the success of the coalition’s Local Enterprise Partnerships – thereby handing councils a significant say in how the zones will operate.
Mr Osborne said the first ten enterprise zones would operate within the following LEPs: Birmingham and Solihull, Leeds City Region, Liverpool; Sheffield City Region, Greater Manchester, West of England, Tees Valley, Northern Eastern, the Black Country, and Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. 'Tomorrow, my right honourable friends the prime minister [David Cameron] and deputy prime minister [Nick Clegg]will announce some of the specific locations of these new enterprise zones,'Mr Osborne told the Commons.
He also announced London mayor Boris Johnson would choose a single enterprise zone for the capital. Mr Johnson later confirmed he has opted for a zone covering the Royal Docks in the Olympic borough of Newham in east London. Mr Osborne said: 'Investors are beating a path to the door of golden opportunities arising in this emerging district.' Mr Osborne's Budget 2011 document further reveals that he ‘will also launch a competitive process for interested LEPs to establish ten [extra] enterprise zones’ in the coming months.
