Local bids through to next stage of City Deal process
THE Government has announced that it is moving the Coventry region forward to the next stage of City Deal status.
Sir Peter Rigby, chair of the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP (CWLEP), said the Government’s decision is a “massive economic milestone” for the area.
The Black Country and Stoke and Staffordshire City Deal bids have also been green-lighted.
The idea behind City Deal is to unlock growth potential in a regional economy, partly by devolving central powers so that a localised strategy can be implemented.
The Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP) led the region’s manufacturing-focused City Deal bid, called Re-engineering Engineering: Raising our Game with the support of all local authorities in the area.
The bid is designed to drive the economy by improving skills, innovation, productivity and jobs building on the area’s strength in engineering and manufacturing.
Rigby said: “This is great news for Coventry and Warwickshire and allows us to put our very exciting plans into place to do just what the LEP was established to do – to create jobs and economic growth and prosperity.
“We are delighted we were able to bring so many key partners together to help formulate the bid.
“It has meant that we could deliver a unified, coherent and compelling case for the whole of the area, and our concentration on engineering and manufacturing capability and skills has obviously struck a chord.
“I feel that the LEP has gained real momentum in recent months and this is a very notable success.
“We now want to turn those plans into reality with the same unified approach which has brought us this Government approval.”
The blueprint to launch a G-AME (Growth of Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering) Changer Programme later this year as part of the CW City Deal highlights many of the LEP’s goals for growth.
These include providing 5,000 new engineers over the next two years and eliminating the City Deal area’s engineering skills shortage by 2020 and encouraging 25% of advanced manufacturing enterprise (AME) businesses to invest in research and development.
