29 August 2012

Yorkshire LEPs One Year After the Armouries

James Reed's article "LEPs unite to back energy hub bid" in today's Business Desk prompts a review of the county's local enterprise partnerships one year on from the very successful Local Enterprise Partnership Summit at the Royal Armouries in Leeds on 9 Sep 2011 (see my post "LEP Summit: My Impressions of the Day as a Delegate" 10 Sep 2011). The Summit welcomed representatives from other Northern LEPs and the question of regional co-operation was touched upon although they were more than counterbalanced by inter-regional rivalries.

Reed's article mentions an example of practical regional co-operation.  The four LEP's have joined forces to back 2CO Energy and and the White Rose CCS Project that could make Yorkshire a centre for green energy production. According to Reed, the LEPs are urging the Government to help fund those projects t as a first step to creating a 'cluster' of expertise in carbon capture and storage technology.  Reid continues:
"The demise of regional development agency Yorkshire Forward and the creation of local enterprise partnerships raised concerns that the new bodies would become preoccupied with local concerns and not act together.
That idea has always been rejected by the LEP chairmen and their united support for the region's pioneering CCS projects is the most high profile example of collaboration between the four bodies to date."
Yorkshire and the Humber now have four local enterprise partnerships and three of them have their own websites:

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