Issue - meetings

Hereford Enterprise Zone

 

 

Meeting: 13/11/2024 - Connected Communities Scrutiny Committee (Item 27)

27 Enterprise Zones pdf icon PDF 314 KB

To provide an overview of the development and key achievements of the Hereford Enterprise Zone as a basis to identify lessons learnt as the council now seeks to establish additional employment land across the wider county, such as the proposed development of Ross Enterprise Park.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The committee considered a report on Enterprise Zone. The Chairperson introduced the officers to present the council’s report.

 

The principal points of the discussion are summarised below:

 

  1. The Service Director, Economy & Growth noted that the main focus of the work was to address the lessons learned from the successful development out of Hereford Enterprise Zone, rebranded as Skylon Park, from around the last ten years. 

 

  1. The Managing Director Skylon Park reiterated the intention of the report to set out the background and history to the Enterprise Zone and the approach that has been taken to for Rotherwas and Hereford Enterprise Zone.

 

  1. The choice that was made was to set up an independent, strategic, non-trading and non-asset owning limited company, chaired by the private sector to oversee the marketing promotion and advocation for the enterprise zone. Therefore, a company was set up, arms-length from the council, to take forward the support and approach to raise the profile and identify potential sales.
  2. A Local Development Order was created which then gives presumption in favour of planning permission for certain classes of development.
  3. There is a board and small support team with a connection back through the economic development team into the various parts of the council including legal and finance. The enterprise zone company makes a recommendation and formal decisions are taken by the council. The support teams’ budgets remained with the council and the council held the decision-making processes that sat behind land sales and budgets that support the enterprise zone.
  4. In the case of Rotherwas, there is a need to invest in the land to make it investable.
  5. In relation to lessons learnt, a number of areas were touched upon as areas that could be learned from including the consideration of each location is important and therefore business interest and the type of business interested in locating in that particular location is highly relevant. Ross is more accessible to the motorway network than Rotherwas.  Additionally, the establishment of local governance is important in terms of private sector and local stakeholder involvement and thus it is important to establish clear terms of reference for any board or partnership.  

 

  1. The Service Director, Economy & Growth clarified on the ownership structure that it is council owned land but the council will sell the freehold of sites to interested businesses which is the preference of business to own and invest in the develop and then own the land. The council will then be responsible for the wider management of the estate and will be for the foreseeable future.

 

  1. In response to a question on what is happening to the saving of business rates and what happens to that money, the Service Director, Economy & Growth noted that there is a time lag between investing in the process before receiving significant amounts of income generated. The government requirement is that any of the retained business rate above the 50% that funds council services has to be spent on economic development activities that can be across  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27