Regional Development Agencies to be axed

emda (East Midlands Development Agency) and the other Regional Development Agencies across the UK are being abolished under Government spending cuts. This means job loses and less support to sustain and develop business across the region and country.

emda has generated between £9 to £15 of economic output (or GVA) for the regional economy for every £1 it spent, and has produced more than £1 billion in economic benefits per year.

emda investment in regeneration and development activity is crucial in terms of providing the supporting infrastructure to enable future growth and business investment. emda can make the connections work between the physical regeneration activity and the supporting investment, skills and employment support. emda can often bring a level of business engagement to projects that couldn’t be achieved by the universities or local authorities on their own.

Some examples of the type of investment made and jobs attracted to Nottinghamshire by emda:

· emda was crucial in the establishment of BioCity (the UK’s largest Bioscience Centre) in Nottingham in 2002, by bringing the two Nottingham-based Universities together and securing ERDF funding of £5.2m alongside £8.8m direct investment by emda. To date 57 knowledge intensive businesses have been created and it has levered in £27m private sector investment. Prior to the involvement of emda and the creation of BioCity in 2002, the total investment in East Midlands Bioscience businesses was less than £1m.

· Sherwood Energy Village, emda investment £1.8m (plus £2.6m from National Coalfields Programme). Through its management of the NCP emda was able to bring together funding that acted as a catalyst for major regeneration in the north of the county. 36 hectares of brownfield land at the former Ollerton Colliery site have been remediated leveraging £22m private sector investment and 1500 jobs have been created by businesses at the Sherwood Energy Village. There were just 1000 when the Colliery was operating. Center Parcs constructed a new £5million head office and call centre at Sherwood Energy Village, providing the business with a 50% increase in call centre capacity, safeguarding 71 of the existing 149 jobs and creating a further 33 jobs. Sherwood Energy Village won the Enterprising Britain Award as the most enterprising place in Britain in 2005.

· Steetley Colliery emda provided a £6.3m Land Remediation Scheme grant and leveraged in £57m private sector investment, creating 270 jobs at a new state of the art pre-cast concrete production plant developed by Laing O’Rourke.

· Trent Bridge emda contributed £2.5m to the necessary upgrading of facilities to meet the standards required to host future Tests and international matches. emda was the only external partner that financially supported the development of the ICC World Twenty20 bid by Trent Bridge, which was hosted at the ground in June 2009. Alongside Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, emda commissioned independent research into the economic impact of the event, which showed that during the period of the tournament almost 100,000 additional visitors came into Nottingham, with a majority coming from outside the East Midlands and many from overseas. The research calculated that from the £6.4m gained by hosting the World Twenty20, £5.9m of this spending was made by visitors from outside the region.

emda play an important role in bring partners together to safeguard jobs or improve services, here are a couple of examples:

· emda was instrumental in getting the East Midlands Airport shuttle bus Skylink off the ground and getting local authority partners to work together on providing an integrated service. The Partnership, has together allocated funding of £2m to provide a 24 hour bus service to Nottingham, Derby and Leicester.

· Global swimwear firm Speedo reaffirmed its based in the city with a new International HQ at NG2 securing jobs for the 170 workforce. emda worked with Speedo and the City Council to identify site options and funding for R&D activity securing the company’s presence in Nottingham.

emda also works with Universities and provides frontline support for businesses in the region.