NW shares £81m from Regional Growth Fund pot

NORTH West companies, local authorities and local enterprise partnerships have been awarded £81m from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund.

In total 11 projects and seven programmes were successful, ranging from family-owned Cheshire engineering group Cygnet to multinational Unilever’s Wirral operation and Manchester multi-channel retailer N Brown.

Over the next 10 years the schemes should safeguard and create 9,900 jobs and unlock £290m of private sector investment.

In total 102 companies and projects in England were successful, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said. They will take a share of a £506m pot of funding to attract significant private sector investment and create jobs.

Mr Clegg said: “There are more people in work today than ever before – since 2010 we have helped create 1.3 million jobs in the private sector. That’s what the Regional Growth Fund is all about – and I’m extremely proud to have found extra money to invest in projects across the country that have plans for the future and want to recruit local talent that will make their businesses better.

“The Regional Growth Fund is exactly what this country needs to go for growth – from family-run Cartwright Group in Manchester who are now expanding to create 300 jobs and train up to 30 apprentices every year for the next three years, to Toyota, who will use the money they receive from this round to upgrade their hybrid car and keep their highly skilled workforce, take on hundreds of new staff, train apprentices, and produce world-class products.”

The Department of Business said the latest round of RGF would leverage £2.8bn of additional private sector investment and create or safeguard 77,000 jobs.

The full list of successful North West bidders can be found below:

Acclerating Business Growth PLUS (Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council – Programme)
Bright Future Software, Salford
Unleashing Cumbria’s Potential (Cumbria County Council – Programme)
Cygnet Group, Cheshire
EA Technology, Cheshire
Turning Discovery Science and Knowledge into Jobs and Growth (Greater Manchester LEP – Programme)
Helical Technology, Fylde
Liverpool City Region Small Business Support Fund (Liverpool City Region LEP – Programme)
N Brown Group, Manchester
Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics, Liverpool
Patterson & Rothwell, Oldham
Redx Pharma, Liverpool
Sidcot Investments, Oldham
St Helens Jobs and Growth Fund (St Helens Chamber – Programme)
Tratos, Knowsley
Unilever UK Central Resources, Wirral
Catalyst for Growth (University of Chester – Programme)
Vix Technology (UK) Bolton

The 102 selected companies and intermediaries were selected after a competitive process from a long list of 309 applications who were seeking more than  £1.9bn.

The offers are conditional and will have to go through a due diligence process.

The Government has also published the first RGF Annual Monitoring Report (AMR), detailing the progress of RGF Rounds 1 and 2 up to March 2013.

The report shows that job creation is on target, with 32,000 jobs created or safeguarded against the 31,500 companies committed to create by March this year.

The report said in round one and two £1.2bn had been invested by the private sector – estimates show that this will create or safeguard a further 26,600 jobs in the wider economy.