NWDA pledges more help for auto sector
THE boss of the North West Regional Development Agency says more help will be given to the region’s troubled automotive sector.
Steven Broomhead told TheBusinessDesk the sector is the one area of the economy which “worries me most”.
In response he said the Warrington-based agency is ready to give more support, in the form of more than grants to Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley and Leyland trucks, to help them improve skills and green technologies. The grants scheme will be announced in the next fortnight.
He said: “We have a strong strategic dialogue with all the companies, and of course we are concerned about what they are going through. The sector is being hard hit because consumers are worried and hanging on to their cars.”
Asked about the crisis at Vauxhall’s parent company General Motors, which is cutting more than 40,000 jobs worldwide and seeking another massive amount of money from the US government to stave off bankruptcy, Mr Broomhead said:
“We have a long-standing relationship with Vauxhall. Last year we helped it with a grant of nearly £9m to win the new Astra at Ellesmore Port and I had to fight to get it through Europe.”
Last week policy group The Work Foundation called for manufacturers to be given the same amount of support as the banks – some of which have received billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money in order to survive through the credit crunch.
This is not a view shared by Mr Broomhead though, who said: “The government’s intervention was absolutely the right thing to do, banks are the bedrock of our economy and we would’ve had a crisis if one had failed.”
He said the agency was helping struggling businesses with in a number of way, including the £10m Transition Loan Fund – which was recently introduced to help viable companies struggling to access funding.
He said: “The key challenge for the agency regarding manufacturers is deciding which to support. We can’t support lame ducks.”
Despite the challenges, Mr Broomhead, who has been at the helm of the agency for six years, believes there are reasons to be optimistic.
He is determined to pursue a practical and positive agenda, and prepare the region for recovery.
“We’re not seeing green shoots of recovery yet, but there are fragile seeds in certain areas – in defence, nuclear and knowledge-based manufacturing sectors for example.
“We can’t let the world of doomster-ism engulf us, the agency’s role is to try and rally confidence, engage with the banks to encourage them to lend at sensible rates and prepare businesses in the region for recovery.”
