Pictured above: Stephen Hemming
Chancellor George Osborne's proposals for new Enterprise Zones
must learn from the mistakes of the past, according to experts at
the Birmingham office of national commercial property consultancy
Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH).
Stephen Hemming, director of Planning, Development and
Regeneration at LSH, said Enterprise Zones could be useful in
encouraging growth, but only if mistakes from the Enterprise Zones
of the 1980s were avoided.
The Chancellor announced the reintroduction of Enterprise Zones
in his speech at the Tory Spring conference. He will give more
details in his Budget speech on March 23, but it is expected that
most of the new Enterprise Zones will be in the Midlands and
North.
The Government is promising to invest at least £100
million in 10 new zones, which will aim to encourage business and
employment by creating a favourable environment of low taxes and
rates and relaxed planning rules. Councils will be allowed to keep
all of the business rates they raise in the zones.
But Stephen Hemming warns that lessons must be learned from the
previous regime. Thirty-eight Enterprise Zones were created between
1981 and 1996, including two centred on Dudley and the Black
Country, four in the East Midlands and one in Telford.
"There were certainly pitfalls first time around. Many of the
zones were simply in the wrong place and the result was that
investors lost money. There is also evidence that new jobs created
were at the expense of areas outside of the designated zones, and
some of the prosperity created was short lived," he said.
Ian Kibble, head of LSH's Birmingham office, said, "A great deal
of thought needs to be put into the location of the zones. They
need to be in commercially acceptable areas which can bring the
benefits of regeneration. In Birmingham, Eastside, Digbeth and
Longbridge could be appropriate areas, which would meet the aims of
existing regeneration proposals including the Big City
Plan."
He added, "Applied in the right way there is no doubt that they
can help regeneration and employment, but they must be in areas of
high growth potential. If they are applied to areas that are simply
in physical decline they could turn out to be an expensive
failure."
The Birmingham office of LSH - based in Edmund Street - offers
the full range of property consultancy services across the whole of
central England. The office delivers transactional and consultancy
property services to both the private and public sector in
industries ranging from banking, finance and telecoms to retail and
transport.
For more information about Lambert Smith Hampton, please visit
their website here: www.lsh.co.uk