Derby to push for enterprise zone status
Derby is to bid for its own enterprise zone, according to John Forkin, managing director of Marketing Derby. Speaking at an Insider round table event, Forkin said that if train maker Bombardier pulled out of the city, the zone could be situated at its Litchurch Lane premises.
Forkin will be part of a Derby delegation which will meet civil servants on Friday (26 August) to push for enterprise zone status. This is despite the government already naming 22 enterprise zones elsewhere following a competitive process.
However, Forkin said he still has not given up hope of Bombardier staying in the city.
"If Bombardier goes I think it will be as big a blow for the UK as a whole as it is for Derby. The government’s decision can be changed, but it will only change through a political shift," he said.
Forkin said that while Derby is resilient, it would be "a tragedy" if the UK was left without the capability to build trains – which will happen if Bombardier shuts its Derby plant.
"Bombardier is the last man standing," said Forkin. "No one else in the UK is building trains, and we're going to need trains more and more in the future – it's economic madness, and a very narrow view of what constitutes value for money. If Bombardier goes, every single train that the UK needs will have to be imported."
Forkin railed against what he perceives as a lack of economic policy from successive governments, saying: "We don't have a business strategy for the UK. The days when the political system was based around policies has died, and it's left industry on the shelf."
Calling for a level playing field with other European economies, he said: "We're in a global economy, but the government seems to have no understanding of how the world works. Civil servants seem cocooned from globalisation, and as an economy we’re weaker for it."
Last week, the government announced the locations of its final 11 enterprise zones; the East Midlands was granted a further two in Leicestershire and Northampton. Zones will also be located in Markham and Nottingham, the Chancellor said in March.
