Staffordshire businesses urged to capitalise on Enterprise Zone
DEVELOPERS and businesses need to act immediately if they are to capitalise on an Enterprise Zone for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire.
Experts believe the scheme, proposed for a site in the Etruria Valley could create around 14,000 jobs and herald millions of pounds of new investment in the area.
The rallying call to businesses has come from Paul Aldridge, a partner at Jones Lang LaSalle, who said firms should not be fooled by headlines about easy money as opportunities for wealth creation required a lot of hard work.
He said potential investors would need more than promises before committing funds to the area.
Talking to delegates at the latest InStaffs’ Developing Staffordshire event at Sandy Hill Business Park, Mr Aldridge said the regional development community needed to lobby Government to make sure previous lessons were learned and conditions were in place to encourage growth.
He also cited Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire’s decision to adopt the ‘string of pearls’ approach – three different sites at Etruria, Hadleigh Park and Keele Science Park under one zone – as a wise decision in spreading risk and meeting the need for a variety of office, R&D and advanced manufacturing facilities.
“On the surface, Enterprise Zones appear to offer a productive solution for attracting growth, but I still believe the devil will be in the detail,” he said.
“Simplified planning is a big tick in the box and should speed the process up, but confusion still remains over capital and machinery purchases and I’m pretty ambivalent to superfast broadband as most companies who demand it tend to establish their own secure connection.”
He added that rate relief of up to £275,000 – spread over five years – was a major commercial benefit as long as firms could move in straight away.
“However, it is only over the course of parliament so if the development is at the planning stage it’s not really going to make much difference to potential occupiers,” he said.
The opportunity for co-operative financing structures, combined with potential rate retention by the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), remained a key driver in speeding up delivery and he said Tax Incremental Financing could well be used as a mechanism for funding and delivering Enterprise Zones.
The three sites within the proposed Enterprise Zone provide over 2 million sq ft of high quality distribution, office and bio-tech facilities.
Phase Three of Keele Science Park and Phase 2 of Etruria Valley are ready to go and represent the offer for R&D, office and advanced manufacturing companies with Hadleigh Park providing options for logistics.
