Sheffield City Region’s Enterprise Zone is set to receive a cash injection of up to £14.2 million to speed up delivery of vital infrastructure at Markham Vale, a leading business and industrial park off the M1.
The grant will generate a further £95.7m of private sector investment, create more than 2,100 jobs and build new access roads, around 16,720 sq m of commercial floorspace, and unlock a further 33 hectares of land for development.
The Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has welcomed the Government decision to invest in the area to help to attract modern manufacturing and technology investors.
James Newman, Chairman of the Sheffield City Region LEP, said:
“The UK economy will be getting an excellent return on this investment from Government which will help to unlock more than £80 million of new business investment and over 2,000 new jobs for the Sheffield City Region.
“The Government’s decision to invest over £14 million in our Enterprise Zone will be welcomed by international investors looking to set up in the Sheffield City Region.
“This important funding will enable us to meet unmet investor demands by making improvements to our Enterprise Zone at Markham Vale, including medium-sized business units and developing larger areas for bigger investors.
“Improvements at Markham Vale will help us to build on the success of our Enterprise Zone, which in its first year attracted 15 new occupiers, created 228 new jobs and was picked out as the number 1 UK free zone by the Financial Times.”
Councillor Joan Dixon, Derbyshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Jobs, Economy and Transport said more than 500 jobs had been announced during the last year alone.
“This Enterprise Zone funding will allow us to develop more of the site, giving us the capacity to continue with our long-term vision of attracting more business and industry, creating 5,000 jobs for local people,”Dixon said.
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Sheffield City Region Enterprise Zone, a recognised hotbed for innovation, was rated number one Enterprise Zone for Modern Manufacturing and Technology by the Financial Times Global Outlook Report. It is home to a number of industry-university collaborations including Siemens’s advanced turbine technology demanded by today’s wind farms and Boeing’s research to reduce the braking time of their Dreamliner aircraft.
Work to prepare the land at Markham Vale for development will start soon and plots are expected to be in place for further development by March 2015.
Derbyshire County Council and its contractors will carry out the work on the site situated next to junction 29A of the M1.
