Good news for the regions?

It wasn’t that long ago that this Government threw out the Regional Development Agencies. That was a bit of a baby and bathwater exercise as far as I could see. Some were flabby and useless, but they were not all bad. You can be sure of one thing about Government though – it can’t help but interfere. If it ain’t broke we most certainly must fix it – with bigger and better and brighter things.

map-east-midlands

The over-heating of the London market has been pretty obvious to see. It isn’t good – especially if you live ‘low down the pecking order’ there. There’s a wheeze around mortgage applications – which now require a MENSA type test for applicants – offering an insufferable spotty teenager with exceptional IT skills an opportunity to say ‘no’ to you. The stories are innumerable. And it seems to be slowing the housing market. The problem is we don’t actually have a problem in the East Midlands Mr UK Government. We were just recovering thanks. Still, one big hammer seems to fix all.

Today there may be a bit of a chink though. David Cameron and that other bloke are to announce some serious wonga for the regions.

The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister will announce the first instalment of plans to invest at least £12 billion in local economies in a series of ‘Growth Deals’. The money will go towards providing support for local businesses to train young people, create thousands of new jobs, build thousands of new homes and start hundreds of infrastructure projects; including transport improvements and superfast broadband networks.

Our local LEP will get £47m – which is great news. Other Cities have done better, some worse – but that’s not too bad for Nottingham and Derby and the respective Shires. Lets hope we can make good use of this funding!

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