Getting our economy moving and creating news jobs is one of the main challenges we face as a country and I want our district to be leading the way. I believe that we need an agenda that is unashamedly pro growth, and also a plan to achieve it. There has been some more good news this week to support this.
On Wednesday the Government announced that there would be a new enterprise zone created in East Kent, which would include the Pfizer site at Sandwich. This will be one of the 21 new enterprise zones which the Government is creating across the country. These zones have simplified planning rules, additional investment for super-fast broadband and tax breaks for businesses, to try and help stimulate investment in parts of the country that need additional help to get things moving. This is excellent news and something that I have been asking the government for along with my fellow East Kent MPs and Kent County Council. The ambition after the announcement was made earlier this year that Pfizer would be withdrawing from its research facilities at Sandwich was to try to attract other research institutions and high skilled industries to move here to take up the available space. In Runcorn, for example, when ICI withdrew from its large facility there, a new business park was established that actually employed more people across new businesses which were attracted to move there. The establishment of the enterprise zone should help us attract more investment into East Kent which will be good news for everyone who lives and works here.
In addition to this the Government is also consulting on proposals that would give councils new incentives to support business growth and job creation in their areas. This would include allowing councils to keep the business rates they collect and the increases that would come from greater business activity. Councils may also be able to provide financial support for initiatives to help local business and be able to recover this investment from the increased business rates it generates over time. This could mean that an initiative to refurbish the town centre, reduce business rates in a hard pressed area or lower parking charges to increase shoppers, as Shepway Council has done in the past, would not have to be funded out of the council tax, but from future business rate receipts.
Shepway Council is already ahead of the curve and has recently started consulting with local businesses on a £1 million investment it is planning to make to help support local businesses and create jobs. This could include investing in new apprenticeship schemes, contacting broadband suppliers to ensure the superfast broadband reaches main areas of employment earlier than planned, setting up an information service to support start-up and small businesses and providing support to local families who find it difficult to get work. This investment has been made possible because of the decisions made over the last few years which have saved the council money and allowed it to build up its reserves. This is good news at a time when other local authorities who had not planned for a rainy day are not in the position to make this kind of investment.