Goodbye Local Enterprise Partnerships. You were great company

And so, Local Enterprise Partnerships are no more. The curtain has come down (well, at the end of this month) on these regional public/private collaborations established 13 years ago by the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills which aimed to ensure that local economic growth was in line with what local businesses said they needed.

The difference between them and their, almost, predecessors – Regional Development Agencies (established in 1998 abolished by the then coalition in 2012), was that Regional Development Agencies were non-departmental government bodies – delivering a more top-down approach rather than listening to what local people and businesses wanted.

Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPS) worked hard to engage with local businesspeople to ensure that their views were taken into account when planning local economic growth strategies. Each LEP set up sector working groups made up of local businesspeople and those employed by the LEP. These often included a skills group to ensure that training being offered by local colleges and universities were what the local economy needed. Other groups included energy, construction, engineering and manufacturing, the visitor economy and so on – each LEP (which generally, though not always, supported a county or city region), and the sector groups would reflect the economy of their regions. In Gloucestershire, the county had a cyber technology group to represent the hundreds of growing cyber companies which flourished around GCHQ.

The LEPs also set up Growth Hubs. These are a network of physical business support centres which had funding to support ambitious start-ups, scale-ups and entrepreneurs. These (sort of) replaced the government’s Business Link network, established in 1992 but abolished in 2012. This also offered funded business advice and guidance service.

All sound good? They were, in their own way. 

Local Enterprise Partnerships also secured millions of pounds in government funding for major strategic and infrastructure projects – colleges, roads, technology hubs.

And the more successful ones rallied the business community around their causes.

One such was GFirst LEP – Gloucestershire Local Enterprise Partnership.

In its heyday, hundreds turned up to its annual meeting where it showcased major projects (often using them as the venue – The famous M5 Motorway Services at Gloucester, Gloucestershire Airport, The Parabola Arts Centre in the Centre of Cheltenham – even on an old aeroplane at Cotswold Airport). 

Yesterday, at its final annual meeting, there were around 150 at the University of Gloucestershire’s Business School where it has held its last couple of meetings. Still a pretty good turnout – but it was rather a muted affair compared to previous years.

But GFirst should be really proud of what it achieved. And, I would argue, it was more successful than many around the country. Look around the county and you’ll see projects that wouldn’t have seen the light of day without the hard work and collaboration between business and local government. Funding or other support was forthcoming for new further education colleges in Gloucester, Cheltenham and the Forest of Dean – new college buildings in Cirencester and Stroud. Major roadworks to free up existing major bottlenecks and anticipated ones where it is planning a massive new cyber and housing development at the Golden Valley. Other achievements included setting up a Made in Gloucestershire food and drink network and an inward investment group which has brought millions into the county.

A new central transport hub in Gloucester, a data centre at Barnwood, support for agritech in Cirencester and Hartpury, and still to complete – and possibly its biggest achievement – the major roadwork project costing half a billion pounds which is currently under way at Birdlip to ensure that you can travel from the South Coast to the North on a dual carriageway. 

How will our nation’s traffic reporters fill their time at daily rush hour without the inevitable “Watch out for the five/10/15/30 (delete as appropriate) minutes delay on the A417/419 at Birdlip”.

What did GFirst LEP achieve? Tens of millions in funding for such projects described above, a growth in the county’s GDP and a sense that Gloucestershire has a plan, a strategy and isn’t coasting along as the retirement home of the rich.

So what comes next? Much of the day-to-day work which the LEP has done is being integrated into Gloucestershire Council Council, including the management and running of the Growth Hubs which will continue for now. More strategic plans are being taken up by the new(ish) Western Gateway. 

This covers the whole of Gloucestershire and Bristol, as far east as Swindon and Wiltshire and across to Cardiff and Swansea – oh – and the rest of South Wales as far as St David’s in far-off Pembrokeshire has asked to join as well.

The Western Gateway is the UK’s first Pan-Regional Partnership, and it is bringing together a coalition of cross-party leaders from across two countries in the UK.  The partnership brings together business and academia alongside 28 local authorities and two Governments from across South Wales and Western England to create economic growth and reach net zero. 

To date, the partnership has spearheaded a vision for a better rail network for the area, created the UK’s first Hydrogen Ecosystem, brought in investment into nuclear, and launched an independent commission to explore the potential for a world leading tidal project in the Severn Estuary.  

I salute Gloucestershire First and its steady leadership under its Chief Executive David Owen and its two chairs, Diane Savory and Ruth Dooley and the dozens of local business leaders who have rolled up their sleeves to support the big plan.

Gloucestershire is stronger for GFirst LEP, and while all good things have to come to an end. I am also really energised by the ambitions of the Western Gateway under its new chair (appointed just this week), Sarah Williams Gardener and its director John Wilkinson, who has the ideal experience having been a senior civil servant in the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. He knows how government works.

And Ruth Dooley, who is about to step down as chair of GFirst, is a board member of the Western Gateway, along with the Leader of Gloucestershire Council Council Mark Hawthorne. We can be sure that both will continue to fly the flag and fight to ensure that regional progress takes county businesses’ interests into account in the wider region.

And we will be here and following their progress to ensure they do!