Broadband boost in Deal extension

The Marches LEP has secured a £7.7m extension to its £75.3 Growth Deal which will see further investment in the roll-out of superfast broadband across Herefordshire, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin.

The extension, which brings the LEP's deal with Government to £83 million, was part of a swathe of announcements of further funding for the UK's 39 LEP regions.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the funding was giving local communities the power and the money to unlock growth and development, while the Deputy Prime Minister said a 'quiet revolution' was under way in the Marches as Growth Deals give more decision-making responsibility to the regions.

"I’ve seen for myself the difference it makes to give Herefordshire, Shropshire, Telford and the Wrekin more power over skills, over business support, over infrastructure spending."

The LEP has also received a commitment from the Government to support the partnership's Higher Education priorities in the Marches.

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The Marches Local Enterprise Partnership has strengthened its board with the appointment of Herefordshire businessman Frank Myers.

Mr Myers is the Managing Director of Ross-on-Wye based MCP Systems Consultants, Ltd.

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Secretary of State visit for announcement

Culture Secretary Sajid Javid MP made the official announcement about the Growth Deal extension in a visit to Telford where he met LEP leaders, broadband project managers and businesses which were already seeing the benefit of superfast connectivity.

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Video highlights business benefit

Shropshire business Severn Partnership was one of the companies invited to meet the Secretary of State to discuss how superfast broadband was already making a real difference in the Marches.

Rollo Rigby, of Severn Partnership and Chris Taylor, of Connecting Shropshire, are pictured on the left updating Sajid Javid MP on progress. A short film demonstrating how optimised broadband is benefiting Severn Partnership can be seen here .

Local Growth update available

The Government has published the first Local Growth in Action newsletter, which will highlight news, announcements and achievements of local growth activities across the country. It will share updates from a wide range of Government and grass-roots programmes. Click here to see the first issue. You can subscribe yourself to future newsletters by emailing your request here.

The Marches LEP is inviting Expression of Interest for Skills Capital projects for consideration for Local Growth Fund support.

The Expression of Interest stage is intended to provide the LEP and its partners with a more complete picture of the types of projects within the LEP area in need of support.

Guidance and an Expression of Interest form can be downloaded here

Thanks for reading! We hope you've found this update from the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership useful. We intend to send regular (but not overwhelming!) bulletins by email to anyone who is interested in what the LEP is working on and achieving. Without the support of both business and the wider community, the work of the Marches LEP would not be possible. If you don't want our updates, please feel free to unsubscribe at any time using the links at the bottom of every message. If you do that though, we'd would always be grateful for your feedback on why you no longer wanted to hear from us, as it helps to tailor our communications.

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