Hughes: Birmingham’s £700m Enterprise Zone advantage
BIRMINGHAM City Council boss Stephen Hughes has claimed the proposed city centre Enterprise Zone puts the city ahead of the game compared to other Local Enterprise Partnerships.
Speaking as part of the Talking Business series run in association with KPMG, Mr Hughes said the scheme would ensure outlying parts of the LEP would benefit considerably from the economic boom that could follow the creation of the Zone.
He said: “With the city centre Enterprise Zone, the ultimate benefit is an increase in rates per annum of around £70m – once all the development has taken place in the five strategic areas in the Big City Plan.
“This gives you an investment pot of £700m. This is more than enough to give you the infrastructure development you need in the city centre and creates opportunities elsewhere too. And this is where our LEP is ahead of the game.
“In effect we’ve got two EZs – the one to deliver the resources from the city centre, but the second is a ring of enterprise in key locations around the city which means we’ll be supporting business growth across the whole of the LEP area.
“This will enable us to deliver the ambitious targets we set out in the LEP prospectus of 100,000 new private sector jobs and £8bn of GVA growth.”
Mr Hughes also sprang to the defence of Andy Street, the managing director of John Lewis, whose appointment as chair of the LEP has been criticised because he is London based.
