The government has today published a list of the 56 bids it has received from councils wanting to create local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) to take on housing, planning, and regeneration powers.

If approved, each body [full list of proposals below] will take on responsibilities currently held by regional development agenies  (RDAs).

Yesterday was the deadline for LEP bids to be submitted by groups of local authorities, companies and voluntary organisations. Many of them contradict and conflict each other about the size and shape of areas to be covered by individual LEPs.

A white paper on regional growth, which is due in the autumn, will spell out which configuration the LEPs will take.

Communities secretary Eric Pickles said the proposals were just the beginning of a “new radical way of delivering prosperity and rebalancing the economy”.

He said: “The bureaucracy of regional development agencies gave local authorities little reason to engage creatively with economic issues. Local enterprise partnerships are a way of tying council and business interests together, and creating the conditions for business to thrive and prosper.”

Vince Cable said business leadership in LEPs was critical.

” It is clear that there must be genuine partnership between business and local government and that local enterprise partnerships should be practical bodies for promoting enterprise, not talking shops.

“In some areas, there might be a focus on skills. In others, local enterprise partnerships may help set priorities for planning and infrastructure decisions.

“The key is that these partnerships are built from the bottom-up and will have the flexibility to determine their own agenda, rather than have it handed down to them by Whitehall.”

The list of 56 proposals is as follows:

Bexley, Dartford, and Gravesham
Birmingham and Solihull with East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth
Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole
Brighton and Hove, Croydon, the Gatwick Diamond and West Sussex  – Coast to Capital
Cheshire and Warrington
County Durham
Coventry and Warwickshire
Cumbria
Devon, Plymouth and Torbay
East Anglia (Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and North Essex)
East Sussex
Empowering Enterprise – Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
Enterprise M3 – Covers parts of Hampshire and Surrey including Andover, Basingstoke, Aldershot, Farnborough, Fleet, Hook and Camberley
Fylde Coast, Lancashire
Gatwick Diamond
Gloucester, Swindon and Wiltshire
Greater Cambridge & Greater Peterborough
Greater Lincolnshire
Greater Manchester
Hampshire
Heart of the South West
Hertfordshire
Hull, East Riding & Scarborough
Humber
Kent and Medway
Kent-Essex
Lancashire
Leeds City Region
Leicester and Leicestershire
Liverpool City Region
Newcastle Gateshead
Norfolk
North East
Northamptonshire
Northumberland and North Tyneside
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Derby and Derbyshire,
Oxfordshire City Region
Pennine Lancashire
Sheffield City Region
Solent
South East Midlands
South Somerset and East Devon
South Tyneside and Sunderland
Stoke-on -Trent and Staffordshire
Surrey Connects
Tees Valley
Thames Valley Berkshire
Thames Valley Buckinghamshire
The Black Country
The Marches Enterprise Partnership – Shropshire and Herefordshire
The Peel Group – Atlantic Gateway – Liverpool and Manchester
Visitor Economy Southern England
West Midlands
West of England
Worcestershire
York and North Yorkshire

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