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County ‘tied up in red tape by LEPs’
Lancashire Evening Post | 11th August 2010

PLANS to try to create up to three Local Enterprise Partnerships in Lancashire to replace funding from the North West Development Agency are could leave the county tied up in red tape, a county business chief claimed today.

The Evening Post revealed yesterday that Lancashire County Council and town halls in mid-Lancashire, including Preston, South Ribble and Chorley, have failed to agree with those in Fylde and Pennine Lancashire on the best way forward for the county’s funding future.

LCC and mid-Lancashire authorities wanted to bid for a single “pan-Lancashire” LEP to cover the whole county.

But Blackburn and Blackpool councils want separate LEPs for the Pennine and Fylde areas.

Three bids will now go in - one for Pennine, one for Fylde and one for the Lancashire County Council area.

And that means the bids will clash, with the possibility that the county could end up with LEPs for east, west and mid-Lancashire - or none at all.

Frank McKenna, chairman of private business lobby group Downtown Preston in Business, said the decision of Fylde and Pennine councils to go it alone was “absolutely ridiculous.”

He added: “Lancashire councils have once again demonstrated parochialism over pragmatism and to create a bureaucracy of three partnerships where one would do is nonsense.

“It will be a right dog’s dinner and it will once again put the county at a disadvantage in comparison to Manchester and Liverpool.”

Mr McKenna said he was planning to write to Government ministers over the situation, in the hope they might intervene.

County Coun Geoff Driver, leader of Lancashire County Council, said he was “disappointed” that the councils could not agree.

Crunch talks between bosses of the 12 district authorities, hosted by County Hall, were held on Monday.

“We think it is entirely against the best interests of the Lancashire sub-region,” he said. “The reason the county council can’t work with different LEPs is it would make us schizophrenic. Which would we think was the higher priority?”