As the second largest Local Enterprise Partnership in the UK outside London we have an opportunity to create a powerful LEP wide message which speaks to government on behalf of businesses, one that sets out what we in the South East want for our economy and how businesses can collaborate with public and private partners to drive growth.
We are delighted to be meeting with partners in Harlow tonight to shape future growth plans and draw opinion and ideas and use these to drive forward a compelling economic growth plan to take to Government.
This is an exciting time for the South East!
Harlow and London Stansted Airport
Harlow is a well located and premium location with major junctions on the arterial motorway into London and the midlands and on the doorstep of London Stansted Airport one of the UK’s fastest growing airports serving 25 million passengers a year.
It is home to many leading companies such technology and innovation business Raytheon and electronics company Arrow, both global companies, and is the site of one the UK’s most recent and advanced data centres being built at the new Kao Park, part of the Harlow Enterprise Zone.
Strategic funding for growth
Harlow College and London Stansted Airport have both benefited from previous rounds of SELEP funding:
Technical and professional skills centre at London Stansted Airport.
SELEP’s Local Growth Fund awarded £3.5 million to support the development of a technical and professional skills centre at London Stansted Airport. It will deliver much broader needs of the airport, the M11 corridor and Harlow Enterprise Zones. The centre will provide the necessary training to meet skills gaps in:
- STEM
- aircraft maintenance
- operational and plant engineering
- logistics
- supply chain management
- asset management
- customer care service industries
- the visitor economy
Other projects which have received SELEP funding include:
- Harlow’s Enterprise Zone phase one development – £15 million of investment of retained business rate uplift.
- Harlow’s Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Centre of Excellence – established with the help of £2.5 million of Skills Capital Funding and a further £346k contribution to fund specialist equipment.
- E-Hub – an enterprise support facility benefitted from over £100k worth of investment to support its development supported the development.
With many funded schemes in flow the future growth of Harlow is both promising and strategically resourced. This kind of funding creates many successes and further potential for Harlow’s economy.
Our Strategic Economic Plan (The SEP)
Currently, across the partnership, SELEP is speaking to businesses, councils, educators and sector leads to refresh its Strategic Economic Plan, Skills Strategy and Infrastructure and Investment Plan. Using inputs from partners we will develop a clear and compelling case to deliver economic growth and attract funding from government.
Read our current Strategic Economic Plan here
About SELEP
SELEP plays an important role in not just Essex, but Kent and East Sussex also. Some of our headline successes include:
- SELEP secured the biggest Round 3 Growth Deal settlement of any LEP at £102.65m. While it’s never enough to satisfy our ambition, we are satisfied with the settlement and are pleased to extend the Growth Deal programme.
- We were identified as the country’s first ‘Housing Business Ready’ LEP following our programme of work with the Housing and Finance Institute.
- We completed our £22m skills capital investment programme with outstanding results
- Perhaps the most important element of our work is how we work with partners and colleagues both in the private and public sector and across the wide geography that is East Sussex, Essex and Kent to deliver the Growth Deal (which provides funds for project that benefit local areas)