Plan to merge Greater Birmingham and Black Country LEPs revealed
The Black Country LEP is smaller and comprises the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and the city of Wolverhampton. It is chaired by steel magnate Stewart Towe, managing director of the Hadley Group.
There are four other LEPs covering the West Midlands region, including Coventry and Warwickshire.
Sir Albert said the economic geography of GBSLEP was “inappropriate” and the organisation reflected a travel to work area rather than an “economic footprint” of the region.
He is discussing merger plans with Labour shadow cabinet members in the hope of securing a firm proposal by 2015, the date of the next General Election. The two LEPs would become one if Labour won the election.
Willingness among the two LEPs to support change was confirmed by a recent decision to ask the government for permission to set up a Greater Birmingham Local Transport Board.
The Birmingham council leader said it was vital for West Midlands local authorities to be “in the vanguard” of decision making and he would safeguard public accountability by ensuring all LEP decisions were ratified by a supervisory board consisting of local authority leaders.
Politicians across the West Midlands had to “take this issue by the scruff of the neck” and drive forward merger plans, Sir Albert said.
Sir Albert added: “We have to all come together. And by 2015 if we have a Labour government then that government will certainly want to see a different geography as far as LEPs are concerned.
“I am not trying to abandon LEPs. I am trying to build on their successes.”
He claims to have the full support of the business community, who wanted “to see the region come together as one”.
In his leader’s policy statement to be issued to the city council today, Sir Albert will say that pledges to create jobs and economic wealth can only be delivered by working at city-region level based “on the real economic geography of Greater Birmingham”.
