As a Cornish man working in Devon I am following the debate on the shape of Local Enterprise Partnerships in the far South West with interest.
With so little guidance from government England is rife with variants of mini RDA’s and county based Economic Development Units. The latest information is that between 56 LEP’s have been submitted. I can’t believe that the coalition partners want to replace 8 RDAs with 56 LEPs. Bids for funding and contract size would either be very small or have a very low success rate with many local communities disappointed. I can understand the Cornish view of a county based LEP but worry about how much funding it will be able to win. The convergence programme has not got long to run and to compete with the North East and the North West will take some imaginative / innovative bids. I think government will influence the final outcome once it feeds back to the LEP partnerships. Your thoughts?
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