New Enterprise Zone Information

Date: 14-12-11

Following approval of the Sheffield City Region (SCR) Enterprise Zone earlier in the year, the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has been working with a number of local stakeholders to finalise a number of important elements of the Enterprise Zone and to conclude negotiations with Government on the type and scale of incentives, which match our Enterprise Zone ambitions. As a result of this activity, the SCR has been designated an Enhanced Capital Allowance (ECA) Enterprise Zone, with Government making available ECAs for investments of up to a total of £300m in eligible plant and machinery across a small number of identified ECA sites. This is in addition to approximately 53 hectares of land for Business Rate Relief (BRR) across a number of additional Enterprise Zone sites.
The available ECAs present a massive opportunity to attract major inward investment to the City Region, however, the LEP Board is keen to look at how this opportunity could be used to support locally based companies. With this in mind, the LEP Board has agreed that ECAs should be used to (a) attract inward investment and (b) enable strategic investments from companies already based in the SCR that would not otherwise happen or that would be accelerated by ECA incentives.
Decisions around ECA investments (regardless of whether they are from inward investors or from locally based companies) will be subject to assessment against LEP defined criteria in order to ensure that any decision making is as open, inclusive and as fair as possible.
The attached letter from James Newman, Chairman of the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, provides further background and detail to allow businesses to assess if they meet the LEP Board’s ECA criteria, and if so to consider submitting more information in line with the detailed criteria.
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In summary, if an eligible company with plans for major capital investment (over £50m) in plant and machinery over the next 5 years and the proposed investment will or could take place within the designated Enterprise Zone ECA sites (i.e at Markham Vale, Advanced Manufacturing Park/ Waverley or the Sheffield-Rotherham Enterprise Zone area) then we would like to hear from you.
The key deadlines for submitting information to the LEP Board are set out below:
• 6th January 2012 - Initial deadline for companies to submit expressions of interest, in order to give the LEP an early indication of levels of interest from locally based companies.
• 20th January 2012 - Deadline for companies to submit full information to the LEP.
• Early February 2012 - Final decision(s) made with more detailed discussions continuing with successful business(es).
Should this opportunity be of interest to your clients or participants in your network / organisation, they should make contact either with Alan Lyons at Creative Sheffield (alan.lyons@sheffield.gov.uk) or directly with Michael Hellewell at the Sheffield City Region Team (Michael.hellewell@sheffieldcityregion.org.uk)