Agenda item

Report deferred from the 19 October 2023 meeting.

Considered – Report of the Director of Transition setting out the impact of the York & North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (YNY LEP).

The LEP will transfer across to the Combined Authority from 1^st February 2024 and will be the organisation taking this agenda forwards in the future.

James Farrar started by thanking the committee for the positive challenge put forwards in many areas over the years of the YNY LEP since its formation in 2010.

·         During its tenure, the YNY LEP has invested over £270m in the region. Through the Local Growth Fund, £145.9m was secured in infrastructure investments for 56 projects. For every £1 invested, £9 private sector investment has been delivered, totalling over £1.2 billion into the economy of the region.

·         Following Covid-19, an additional £15.7m investment was secured through the ‘Get Building Fund’ in 15 projects, in particular to improve the digital infrastructure on nine rural business parks and 20 town centre WiFi areas.

·         Nine flood resilience projects totalling £7.1m levered over £26m additional investment and will create or protect 1570 jobs and a cost benefit ratio of 9:1 when looking at the wider impact.

·         Facilities for colleges were improved through a £12.3m investment to help young people prepare for careers of the future right across the region.

·         Enterprise Zone status has been secured for the ‘York Central’ scheme, investing an additional £7.5m in infrastructure. Master development partners were appointed just before Christmas to progress the scheme, which will benefit not just York but the wider region as well, and is envisaged to deliver 6500 new jobs, 2500 new homes and £1.1billion Gross Value Added (GVA) benefit.

·         The work of the YNY LEP couldn’t have been achieved without the partnerships with the former district and county councils. The public/private sector partnership approach has delivered a range of capital projects and using a range of expertise to work through any difficulties and uncertainties has proved invaluable.

·         The LEP also led on securing over £90m EU funding, in particular over £7m into the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, which has subsequently delivered a huge rate of return on investment (the highest in the North of England), benefitting many businesses and SMEs in North Yorkshire.

·         The European Social Fund saw £44.5m in skills investment, with £17m in social inclusion and £19m in the workforce that supported over 25,000 individuals to improve their skills or address barriers to employment.

·         North Yorkshire benefitted from over £13m investments from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) to support the creation of 22 food processing businesses, 304 new jobs and bringing 59 new products to market alongside business development and tourism infrastructure to help stimulate activity.

·         The LEADER programme, managed by the YNY LEP supported Community Led Local Development in the most deeply rural areas, such as the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors, coast and hills communities.

·         Wider work has seen the ‘Routemap to Carbon Negative’ developed to provide ambitious plans for the region to deliver net zero and beyond, as well as taking advantage of the economic opportunities it represents. The scale of challenge is enormous, but the work to develop the routemap has seen the region be selected by government to pilot an approach to securing private sector investment into natural capital (£1m) and to explore the potential for private sector investment into Local Area Energy Plans (£2m).

·         £750k from the Community Renewal Fund to pilot new approaches in the hardest to decarbonise homes, such as the old stone houses in rural North Yorkshire, plus working with the NHS to deliver feasibility studies at key hospitals whilst also decarbonising community buildings. This will be built on by the £7m Net Zero Fund agreed as part of the Devolution Deal for the new Combined Authority. This requires a collaborative approach, such as the ‘Grow Yorkshire’ initiative that brought together the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), Yorkshire Agricultural Society, University of York and FERA.

·         Support for business has always been at the heart of the LEP work, such as small business support through The Growth Hub and COVID support grants to businesses during national restrictions of lockdown 1, 2 and 3, which will continue as part of a new collaborative ‘One Front Door’ model under the Combined Authority.

·         Lessons learnt include the development of strong relationships across a key range of stakeholders, embedding partnership in everything we do. The YNY LEP is a public/private partnership and the mutual respect and genuine joint working has been key to its success.

As the Combined Authority is set up, it is hoped to continue these strong working relationships, with trust and transparency to be bigger, better and bolder in the future to deliver on our key ambitions.

Resolved – That the committee note the impact of the LEP since its inception; and thank the LEP team for all their hard work.