Local Enterprise Partnerships' £625,000 funding boost (From York Press)

Local Enterprise Partnerships' £625,000 funding boost

4:07pm Monday 17th September 2012 in News By Julie Hayes, Business editor

LOCAL Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are to receive £24 million for funding from Government for core functions.

The 39 LEPs across England, including York, North Yorkshire and East Riding LEP and Leeds City Region LEP, will receive up to £125,000 for the remainder of the financial year, followed by £250,000 in each of 2013-14 and 2014-15, subject to match funding from local authorities.

Neil McLean, chair of Leeds City Region LEP said: “Today’s announcement is excellent news and an important signal of Government’s commitment to the success of LEPs. I am delighted ministers have listened to the messages they have received from LEP chairs on this - a relatively small amount of additional funding will go a long way, empowering us to take forward work to drive growth and jobs at local level.”

Tim Frenneaux, enterprise partnership manager of York, North Yorkshire and East Riding LEP, added: "Setting up the LEPs without any money was really useful because it forced us to work out what we needed to do to have the biggest effect rather than how to spend an amount of money. Now that critical thinking has been done, we need some resource to be able to deliver."