West Midlands leaders bullish on Investment Zone potential

By Peter Davison

17 July 2023

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Business leaders in the West Midlands are encouraged by the potential of an investment zone

Almost a year after Investment Zones were first announced by then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng in the Autumn ‘mini-budget’, mid-market business leaders in the West Midlands are encouraged by the blueprint for what it could mean for the selected regions.

In Grant Thornton’s latest Business Outlook Tracker survey, two thirds of business leaders in the West Midlands (66 per cent) - one of the proposed regions where an Investment Zone will be located - said that their introduction will help towards the government’s Levelling Up agenda.

Investment Zones provide a number of financial incentives to local businesses in the area and a clear majority (60 per cent) of West Midlands business leaders believe that these incentives, such as Stamp Duty Land Tax relief and 100 per cent Business Rates relief, are focused on the right areas to encourage business investment.

The same percentage of respondents (60 per cent) also believed that being located within an Investment Zone would encourage businesses to stay within the local area.

However, the survey also revealed that business leaders in the West Midlands believe that the twelve proposed locations are not completely adequate, with 58 per cent believing that there should be more Investment Zones located in other areas in the UK.

Currently, eight of the twelve proposed Investment Zones will be in England with at least one of the remaining four in each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In addition to the West Midlands, seven other English regions have been shortlisted.

James Brown, practice leader for Grant Thornton UK LLP in the West Midlands: “From our latest tracker, it is clear that business leaders in the West Midlands can envisage the benefits the extra funding will have on the region, which will hopefully help drive long term economic growth and increase opportunities for all who are located here.

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“The West Midlands is a region with many strengths. While Birmingham has long been proud to be home to leading manufacturers, the arrival in recent years of major global players in the financial sector shows our biggest city is continuing to attract businesses from across the world.

"Elsewhere, Coventry continues to bolster its national and international reputation following its triumphant 2021 City of Culture status, and Wolverhampton is primed to build further on its strengths in advanced manufacturing, construction and transport.

“Yet it is vital that businesses throughout the entire region feel the benefit of the Investment Zone, and at Grant Thornton we look forward to working with businesses of all sizes across the five counties to ensure every opportunity is seized upon.”

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.