LEPs "only show in town", says Lynch
There remains "confusion" around Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), but they’re "the only game in town" and local businesses should support them. That’s the message from Ron Lynch, the East Midlands regional director for the Institute of Directors.
Speaking at Insider’s recent Directors Forum in Nottingham, Lynch said: "There is still a lot of confusion about the exact role of the LEPs, but I have my own ideas about what they should be doing; and they shouldn’t just be about chasing Regional Growth Fund money.
"The LEP should be banding together and getting some money to improve access into and out of Nottingham."
Lynch went on to say he thought the East Midlands Development Agency (Emda) has made mistakes through chasing every available source of cash, rather then targeting what the private sector needed.
He added: "I don’t want to denigrate what Emda did, because – in the main – I think they did a good job. However, businesses didn’t know how to use the cash that Emda brought in.
"For far too long the private sector has been reliant on the public sector – that has to end. The private sector has to bring confidence back to the market. I want to see the LEPs success, and I want them, to reflect the voice of business. They’re the only show in town at the moment, and I think we should all get behind them."
