The Government have announced 39 Growth Deals designed to help local economies. Growth Deals provide funds to local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) for projects that benefit the local area and economy. The Growth Deals will bring together into a single pot, housing and infrastructure funding. These funds are targeted at local businesses, with the aim of kick starting new infrastructure projects including transport improvements. It will also help training and job creation and new home builds.

£6bn of local projects have been agreed, this money includes the complete allocation of £2bn from the Local Growth Fund for 2015-16.  Government predicts that this will lead to work on more than 150 roads, 150 housing development and improvements to 20 stations.

The Prime Minister said:
“Growth Deals are a crucial part of our long-term plan to secure Britain’s future. For too long our economy has been too London-focused and too centralised. Growth Deals will help change all that. They are about firing up our great cities, towns and counties so they can become powerhouses”.

Allocations of funding from the Local Growth Fund for LEPs 2015/16 can be found here.

Growth Deal discussions for future years will begin immediately over the unallocated minimum of £6 billion of the £10 billion available for 2016 to 2017 to 2020 to 2021.

CIHT welcome the Government’s announcements on local funding and the recognition given to the fact that transport infrastructure will play a key role in supporting economic growth.