LEP Chair meets with Kirklees manufacturing firms

26.02.2014

Roger Marsh, Chair of the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP), met with Kirklees businesses on February 25 to seek their views on plans to attract hundreds of millions of pounds of government investment into the Leeds City Region.

Mr Marsh visited turbo manufacturer Cummins, the Textile Centre of Excellence, and multi award-winning fabrics exporter Camira in Mirfield. The LEP Chair also attended a meeting of Kirklees Business Champions at the University of Huddersfield’s 3M Buckley Innovation Centre, where he outlined the LEP’s ambitious proposals for a share of the government’s £2bn Local Growth Fund.

The LEP is currently developing a Strategic Economic Plan in response to the government’s invitation to all 39 local enterprise partnerships nationally to negotiate a Local Growth Deal for their area. As well as providing vital government funding to boost the region’s economy – including potential investment in business support, skills, transport, energy infrastructure, and housing and development sites – the Growth Deal could also help the LEP secure new freedoms and flexibilities that would enable the Leeds City Region to take greater control of its economic destiny.

Roger Marsh commented: “I’m delighted to have the chance to meet with Kirklees companies and hear what they see as the key opportunities for growth over the coming years. As a major manufacturing cluster within Leeds City Region – itself the largest manufacturing centre in the UK – Kirklees firms, including Camira, Cummins and countless others, are driving the UK’s manufacturing innovation, and have an important role to play in helping the LEP develop the Leeds City Region as an economic powerhouse nationally and globally.”

Roger Marsh was formerly Senior Managing Partner at PwC in Leeds. As the firm’s UK Northern Leader, Government and Public Sector, he worked with the Smith Institute to create the policy proposal, “Rebalancing the economy: prospects for the north” and was seconded to the Cabinet Office in 2007 as Director General, Strategic Finance and Operations” We’d be grateful if you didn’t refer to his former role at Leeds and Partners.