New zones were announced at sites in Warrington, Cornwall, Gosport, Norfolk, Hereford, Kent and Oxfordshire these will accompany sites also planning within Essex, Suffolk, Northampton, Leicestershire, Cambridgeshire and Humber Estuary.
Plans for 21 nationwide zones were originally set out in March’s Budget and bids to host one of the zones were submitted by 30 local groups, made up of council and business leaders.
The enterprise zones previously announced were: Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, the Black Country, the Tees Valley, the West of England and the North East.
Prime Minister David Cameron said: “We are determined to do everything we can to make Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business.
“Enterprise Zones are a major step towards delivering this – cutting business taxes, easing planning restrictions and giving business the tools they need to invest and expand.
“These new Enterprise Zones will be trailblazers for growth, jobs and prosperity throughout the country.”
The scheme has been compared to similar initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s, which saw the transformation of London’s Docklands, among other sites.
Richard Alvin, managing director, Capital Business Media, publishers of Business Matters said: “as someone, who in the late 1990’s, was employed by the London Docklands Development Corporation, the government body which oversaw the regeneration of the London Docklands and management of their Enterprise Zone, I saw first hand and spent time with many small businesses which were able to grow much faster than others located in different parts of the UK as they were able to benefit from tiered business rates and grants and additional subsidies.”
The complete list of new locations announced are:
- Daresbury Science Campus in Warrington
- Newquay AeroHub in Cornwall
- The Solent Enterprise Zone at Daedalus Airfield in Gosport
- Rotherwas Enterprise Zone in Hereford;
- Discovery Park in Sandwich, Kent
- Enterprise West Essex in Harlow
- Science Vale UK in Oxfordshire
- Alconbury Airfield in Cambridgeshire
- Great Yarmouth in Norfolk
- Lowestoft in Suffolk;
- Northampton Waterside
- MIRA Technology Park in Hinckley Leicestershire
- Humber Estuary Renewable Energy Super Cluster
