The Government has today, 25 November 2015, announced 18 new Enterprise Zones and extended eight zones as part of its Spending Review.
These 26 new and extended Enterprise Zones will cover 3,226 hectares, an area equivalent to 4,529 standard sized football pitches.
Enterprise Zones are a key part of the Government’s strategy for enabling growth in local areas. Current Enterprise Zones have strong sectoral focus in automotive aerospace, renewable energy, and advanced manufacturing. The new ones bring to the mix the very first agri-tech and advanced ceramics Enterprise Zones.
Helping to rebalance the economy, nine of the new and extended Enterprise Zones are in the Northern Powerhouse. Fifteen of them are in smaller towns or rural areas taking the Enterprise Zones programme beyond core cities and major urban areas.
The benefits to business of locating to an Enterprise Zone are business rates discounts or enhanced capital allowances (in assisted areas). And local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) retain 100 per cent of the business rates for 25 years to invest in local economic growth.
In total there will be 44 Enterprise Zones in England – 18 new, 24 existing (of which eight have extensions), plus Blackpool Airport and Plymouth Enterprise Zones which were previously announced in the Budget that took place in March 2015.
The new and extended Enterprise Zones are:
- Aerohub Extension (Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP)
- Aylesbury Vale (Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP)
- Bristol Temple Quarter and Bath and Somer Valley (West of England LEP)
- Birmingham Enterprise Zone Curzon Street (Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP )
- Cambridge Compass (Greater Cambridge & Greater Peterborough LEP)
- Carlisle Kingmoor Park (Cumbria LEP)
- Ceramic Valley (Stoke and Staffordshire LEP)
- Cheshire Science Corridor (Cheshire and Warrington LEP)
- Didcot Growth Accelerator (Oxfordshire LEP)
- Dorset Green (Dorset LEP)
- Enterprise M3 (Enterprise M3 LEP)
- Enviro-Tech (Hertfordshire LEP)
- Great Yarmouth & Lowestoft Enterprise Zone Extension (New Anglia LEP)
- Greater Manchester Life Science (Greater Manchester LEP)
- Heart of the South West (Heart of the South West LEP)
- Hillhouse Chemicals and Energy (Lancashire LEP)
- Humber Enterprise Zone Extension (Humber LEP)
- Infinity Park Derby Extension (D2N2 LEP)
- Luton Airport (SEMLEP)
- M62 Corridor (Leeds City Region LEP)
- NE Round 2 (North East LEP)
- New Anglia (New Anglia LEP)
- Newhaven (Coast to Capital LEP)
- North Kent Innovation Zone (South East LEP)
- Tees Valley Enterprise Zone Growth Extension (Tees Valley Unlimited LEP)
- York Central (York, North, Yorkshire & East Riding LEP)
From which the following are extensions:
Aerohub Extension
Bristol Temple Quarter and Bath and Somer Valley
Birmingham Enterprise Zone Curzon Street
Great Yarmouth & Lowestoft Enterprise Zone Extension
Humber Enterprise Zone Extension
Infinity Park Derby Extension
North Kent Innovation Zone
Tees Valley Enterprise Zone Growth Extension
