“In April, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg announced the list of 45 projects earmarked to receive a share of £450 million available through the first round of the fund.

However, funding is subject to a due diligence process by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) to assess, among other legal and financial matters, the EU state aid compliance of bids.

A Freedom of Information request by Planning (Haymarket E-newsletter) has revealed that due diligence has been completed on just one of the bids – a fund launched by Plymouth University and the Western Morning News to award small grants to local businesses.

A DBIS spokesman said it expects to complete the process by the autumn, as originally planned. He said: “Due diligence takes a different length of time for each bidder, and we must ensure investment provides value for money for the taxpayer.”"…..

Enterprise Zones announced in March 2011
Birmingham and Solihull
Leeds
Liverpool
Greater Manchester
the Tees Valley
Tyneside
the Bristol area
the Black Country
Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire
Sheffield
London

Enterprise Zones announced in August 2011
Humber Estuary Renewable Energy Super Cluster
Daresbury Science Campus, near Warrington and Runcorn
Newquay AeroHub in Cornwall
The Solent Enterprise Zone at Daedalus Airfield in Gosport
MIRA Technology Park in Hinckley Leicestershire
Rotherwas Enterprise Zone in Hereford
Discovery Park in Sandwich, Kent and Enterprise West Essex in Harlow
Science Vale UK in Oxfordshire
Northampton Waterside;
Alconbury Airfield, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire
Great Yarmouth in Norfolk
Lowestoft in Suffolk

Together with Regional Growth Fund and start-up grants made to Local Economic Partnerships, the new Enterprise zones represent the main planks in the Coalition Government’s sub-national – ie English – economic development policy, although the proposed High Speed Rail Link, HS2, between London, Birmingham and the North of England is also being promoted as a key regional development project.

Advice in  ”Frequently Asked Questions” on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website section for Regional Growth Funding.

I have now gleaned – no thanks to BIS who never responded to my email – that RGF due diligence is carried out by advisers commissioned by the prospective grant recipients.

It is not at all clear how BIS will ensure that the due diligence process reflects the key risks associated with particular projects, including planning and infrastructure issues.

“A new era of transparency, accountability and openness”, to quote the Communities Secretary, is still not in prospect.

National Trust blasted over NPPF criticism
Nick Whitten 28/07/2011 09:38

The British Property Federation and the British Chambers of Commerce have blasted National Trust criticism of the new National Planning Policy Framework.

National Trust claims that the NPPF could lead to urban development across green-belt land are understood to have riled the Department for Communities and Local Government.

In a joint letter the BPF and BCC said the National Trust had “resorted to hyperbole and scare tactics” in dismissing the proposed 52-page planning framework which could replace more than 1,000-pages of planning policy.

The letter said the National Trust has suggested the NPPF will lead to the “despoliation of the countryside and to Los Angeles-style urban sprawl”.

It added: “No wonder ministers are reported to be concerned at this response to what seems to us to be a wholly reasonable document.

“Few realise that built-up land in England represents under 10% of the total. It will still be less than 10% under the new framework.

“What will be different, however, is the ability of our worthy but painfully slow planning system to support the growth that our economy so desperately needs and is currently failing to achieve.”

We should be grateful to the National Trust for raising the profile of the urban sprawl threat inherent in the Coalition Government’s latest proposals for the planning system.

It is clearly not only ministers that the Trust has riled, but also major corporate interests represented in the British Property Federation and British Chambers of Commerce.

The Federation of Small Businesses meanwhile seems to have adopted a position more in line with that of the National Trust in a recent press release which asks the Government to:

• Adopt a robust ‘town centre first’ policy in the new National Planning Policy Framework
• Ensure that the new ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ is streamlined and doesn’t favour big businesses at the expense of small firms, and is has a clear definition of sustainable development 

One of the biggest problems for the competitiveness of British business is the continuing dominance of speculators, including those engaged in land and property speculation who continue to waste large amounts of planning time.

It is these speculators who have contributed more than any other set of stakeholders to the “painfully slow planning system” identified by the BPF and BCC, and who represent the enemy of sustainable enterprise in England particularly.

Again, very well done National Trust for raising the profile of the urban sprawl threat.

What we need now is for the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to implement  his own advice  and deliver “….. a new era of transparency, accountability and openness” in planning.

Indeed, I would particularly recommend “No-One Loves a Policeman” not only to Sir Paul Stephenson but also to George Osborne, and their respective friends.  To quote from the book’s back cover: “It is December 2001 and Argentina is in meltdown, Pablo Martelli, once in an elite branch of the police force known as the “National Shame”, is a shadow of his former self, scraping by as a bathroom appliance salesman…”. No luxury spas here!

The backdrop to the story is the Argentinian banking crisis of the early noughties when the value of the national currency plummeted, and a country already prone to corruption was given considerable further stimulus by economic events.

The plot revolves around the murder of an oil industry executive, possibly running a sideline in biofuel research, so there is environmental interest too.

“Purge” may be of interest to the wider political classes, being a post-feminist narrative about the life of one Alide Tru, a feisty ex-communist Estonian pensioner who proves more than capable of dealing with all the regime changes thrown at her by the twentieth century. Whilst this novel cannot be described as “Chic-Lit”, the young – the story also has a twenty something heroine called Zara  - and old of Britain could learn much from Alide’s resourceful self-sufficiency, which puts most modern “Greens” to shame.

Both books, it has to be said, favour the darker side of life, and certainly fulfil the essential criteria of the noir category of fiction. However, they also explore the kind of themes increasingly relevant to twenty first century Britain, the type of modern grim realities not  covered in Julian Critchley’s elegant and elegaic post-war memoir. Nevertheless his advice concerning the “safe pleasure…of a bag of boiled sweets” remains as relevant today as ever:  for policeman and public servants, as well as for politicians.

It is of course a great shame that Critchley later found himself expelled from the Conservatives for promoting a pro-European party headed by Ken Clarke, although the present Coalition Government might be regarded as the ghost of Critchley’s revenge served cold. 

A self-confessed political hack, Critchley  was also prescient in expressing gratitude for not being a career journalist forced to work for the Murdoch empire!

A “Bag of Boiled Sweets” is a candid political memoire, rather than structured biography, which reflects not only the writer’s skills as a journalist, but also an acute observation of human nature which might have lent itself to the practice of psychotherapy.

That said, the therapy profession and its adherents – think of New Labour – often lack any real sense of humour which is certainly not an accusation that can be levelled at Critchley.

In summary, this book is full of fun, but not without seriousness and sadness too, with Julian Critchley emerging as a warm-blooded member of the human species, unlike his rather “cold fish” colleague Lord Heseltine or the reptilian Ken Livingstone, who co-incidentally fell out with his political party at about the same time.

The Russian announcement follows safety checks prompted by the nuclear crisis in Japan after an earthquake and tsunami earlier this year. Environmentalists in Russia have welcomed their government’s remarkably open admission of the nuclear risk assessment.

This reminds me that I must contact Comrade Cable following the continued non-response to my inquiry regarding  the due diligence procedure for the Business Department’s Regional Growth Fund.

I seem to remember from my days at one of the large firms of accountants that due diligence checklists and related protocol for government grants was in their line of business so perhaps one of these is still working on something for BIS.

Anyway, I hope there really is a comprehensive due diligence process for RGF !

In the meantime, the re-emergence of Lord Heseltine on the economic development scene has reminded me of a very funny biography of him by the late Julian Critchley.

I recently chanced upon Critchley’s own autobiography,  ”A Bag of Boiled Sweets”, which is just as amusing and would make excellent summer reading for the Business Secretary, who may be running a deficit in the humour department.

It is, therefore, worthy of note that this photograph of Lord Heseltine, from his Wikipedia entry, identifies him as Deputy Prime Minister ! Perhaps David Cameron has more than one DPM, and  Lord Heseltine’s unpaid internship in this capacity is regarded by Mr Clegg as a threat to his paid position.

Lord Heseltine is also Chairman of the Government’s Regional Growth Fund, although I’m not sure how this role squares with Vince Cable’s position as ministerial head of the Department for  Business, Skills and Innovation, to which RGF is presumably accountable.

Former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher seems to have regarded Michael Heseltine as something of a loose cannon, and her husband apparently called him “The Blond Bombshell” !

However, having sounded this cautionary note, I also want to express strong support for the excellent work which Lord Heseltine has put in to urban regeneration over many years, and the RGF’s support for The Prince’s Trust in Birmingham, as well as the present Government’s planned Enterprise Zone.

These initiatives fit well with the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy – ie the statutory strategic plan for this region – with its emphasis on renaissance of Major Urban Areas like Birmingham.  The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for RGF’s provisional allocation of £17 million for a so-called “Worcester Technology Park”, near M5 Junction 6.

I do not want to say too much about this particular proposal at the present time, as part of it is currently subject to the planning process, albeit disingenuously described as “Worcester Bosch Move”. The application is in fact a joint one by Bosch Thermotechnology and Advantage West Midlands, the regional development agency which is in the process of abolition.

AWM, along with property firm St Modwen, has also been responsible for the re-development of the Longbridge site on the edge of the West Midlands conurbation: one of the most important regeneration projects in the region. The Longbrideg RGF bid has, however, been turned down: a decision which local Labour MPs are now challenging.

Worcester’s MP, it should be noted, is Robin Walker, the son of former Tory grandee Peter Walker (a contemporary of Lord Heseltine) and the constituency in which the proposed RGF-funded technology park would be located is also Conservative, along with the various local authorities involved. During Peter Walker’s tenure as the MP for Worcester the outward growth of the city was also subsidised by a Conservative central government.

Meanwhile, the economy of the West Midlands Conurbation was seriously undermined by the outward movement of people and employment to places like Worcester. This process was partly reversed by positive planning in favour of renaissance of the MUAs during the previous Labour administration, but the thrust of present government funding for regional growth now looks set to undermine this.

The road to regional degeneration, and not just in the West Midlands I would suggest, is paved by giving lucrative favours to political friends and supporters. ‘Twas ever thus no doubt. However, those of us who voted for a Coalition Government had hopes that decisions on major government investment in infrastructure and other projects might be made against sound sustainability criteria this time around.

Oh, and some joined-up policy would be nice !