[Awayo]

Liverpool’s ‘Local Enteprise Partnership’ bid successful

LIVERPOOL’S bid to set up a regional wide partnership to replace the NWDA has been given the green light by the government.

The “Local Enterprise Partnership” aims to boost investment in Merseyside, and will include former Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy on its board.

Continues

Worth its own thread, I think.

This body will have few resources given to it by government. However it now exists and we do have a body to respresent something like the reality of Liverpool metropolitan area, rather than a harmful bogus on an imaginary region. Small steps...

 

[Gareth]

Yeah, small steps. Of course, we still have the ridiculous situation of places like Ellesmere Port being outside of it, but it's okay for now. Hopefully, we'll get a proper devolution of powers in this country soon, but I'm not holding my breath just yet.

 

[design_man]

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1148669&page=2

Awayo, we already have a thread, but never mind, it had gone hopelessly off-track. Hopefully this one will do better.

 

[Awayo]

Fair enough. Mais, continuez.

 

[Howie_P]

£50m Merseyside land portfolio could be sold off when NWDA is scrapped
Nov 2 2010 by Rob Merrick, Liverpool Daily Post

MERSEYSIDE politicians fear tens of millions of pounds worth of land on Merseyside will be flogged off to fill Treasury coffers when the Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) is scrapped.

The doomed quango boasts a portfolio worth at least £50m – everything from business parks and industrial estates to land, offices and artwork – built up over more than a decade.

Now controversy surrounds who will seize the assets when the NWDA is axed, in March, 2012, amid growing calls for them to be retained in local ownership.

Cllr Joe Anderson, leader of Liverpool Council, told the Daily Post he had written to the Treasury, and to Business Secretary Vince Cable, expressing his concerns about any sale being used to balance the books in Whitehall.

He said: “These assets belong to the people of the area. It is right we control our assets to ensure the city and the city-region reap the rewards in terms of our continuing plans for regeneration.

“We keep getting told by the Government this is about localism, yet these local assets will be taken away.”

One stumbling block is that the new LEPs, including one given the go-ahead for the Liverpool city-region, will not automatically become legal entities, in the same way as the NWDA.

Instead, it appears the six Mersey councils forming the LEP will have to bid to Whitehall for special “legal status” if they wish to “own assets, or contract to deliver certain functions”.

Full article here >>

 

[Howie_P]

Local enterprise partnerships ‘likely to fail’, warns business minister
Nov 3 2010 by Rob Merrick, Liverpool Daily Post

NEW organisations to win private-sector jobs for Merseyside and across the North are a “likely failure”, a Government minister warned in an extraordinary leaked letter.

Business minister Mark Prisk wrote many local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) lack focus, lack the input of business leaders and are “in danger of failing to aid economic growth”.

The devastating verdict – in a letter to Business Secretary Vince Cable – was revealed just days after a LEP was given the go-ahead for the Liverpool city-region and in 23 other areas.

Source: Liverpool Daily Post

 

[aek-94]

Could other areas like Cheshire West and Chester, and West Lancashire join the Liverpool City Region LEP one day? or now that a Cheshire and Warrington LEP and Lancashire LEP has been created respectively, does that mean they can never join?