Communities secretary Eric Pickles said the Government had found an extra £100m to transform ‘shovel ready sites into job ready sites’.
“The government is putting its money where its mouth is and making sure enterprise zones have the buildings and infrastructure they need to make sites ready for business to set up in,” said Pickles.
The fund, originally £60m, is designed to help zones reach their real growth potential faster as economic engine rooms of local economies.
Following a competitive bidding process the successful proposals will now undergo further testing by the Homes and Communities Agency to ensure value for money for the taxpayer.
Shortlisted enterprise zones
- Aerohub Business Park, Newquay, Cornwall: the investment would support the creation of a new Business Park adjacent to Newquay Airport
- Enterprise West Essex at Harlow, London Road:Infrastructure works for a new Life Sciences Medtech Innovation Centre
- Solent enterprise zone at Deadalus Airfield: Enable the design and construction of a 3,000 sq m business incubation centre for small and micro businesses seeking a flexible presence on the enterprise zone.
- Masshouse – Birmingham City Centre enterprise zone: Public realm works together with essential public car parking to build major city centre office employment space.
- Kirkeatham Business Park – Tees Valley enterprise zone: A new service road to support 4 hectares of commercial land for development.
- Queens Meadow Business Park – Tees Valley enterprise zone: A new service road for commercial land development.
- Sheffield City Region enterprise zone – Waverly: Site preparation and infrastructure for the region’s largest mixed use site, planned to provide 140,000 sq m of commercial floorspace.
- Logic Leeds – Aire Valley enterprise zone: An access road and supporting infrastructure work for the Innovation Health Hub on the Logic Leeds site.
- Tower Road South, Wirral Waters enterprise zone, Liverpool: Site preparation and remediation infrastructure works for international city waterfront on the Birkenhead and Wallasey docks at the Tower Road South site, a planned mixed use quarter including a college or university technical college for maritime engineering.
- Brough, Humber Green Port Corridor enterprise zone, Yorkshire: The site needs remediation and infrastructure as well as flood risk mitigation work
- Discovery Park, Dover: the 220 acre, former Pfizer site at Discovery Park, in Sandwich, Kent, Investment to refurbish and redesign three buildings, which were originally built for a single company
- Manchester Airport City enterprise zone: Upgrade and install roads and junctions, services and public realm for 2 sites at Manchester Airport providing more than 230,000 square metres of employment floorspace. The northern site will focus on office, hotel and leisure, while the southern area will provide logistics and warehousing.
- Sheffield Business Park Phase 2, Sheffield: Investment to support a new road and related infrastructure work for Phase 2 of development of more than 83,000 sq m of commercial space.
- Daresbury EX/East Runcorn, Halton: Funding to build two new bridges over the Bridgewater canal to enable development of the new homes on the site.
- Poulton Road, Beaufort Road, Wirral: Funding to remediate the West Float site as well as improve local highways at Wirral Waters.
- Arena Central, Birmingham: Demolish the remaining buildings on the Arena Central and fund a new pedestrian link between Broad Street and Holliday Street
- Argyle Works, Birmingham: Convert a warehouse into a new data facility on Great Barr Street.
- Lancashire enterprise zones Samlesbury, Ribble Valley: A new access road and utilities to attract new investors to former BAe site
