Nottinghamshire's County Council's leader says plans for new 'investment zones' in the East Midlands are a 'really exciting opportunity' to bring more well-paid jobs to the area. The Government says that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will be announcing the creation of 12 investment zones across the UK in his budget on Wednesday .
"While there are some great examples of collaboration between academia and businesses across the East Midlands via knowledge transfer partnerships and funded support programmes, we have known for some time that far more could be done to turn innovative research into real products and services. Dedicated investment zones that support this concept in order to drive new investment and level up the country would be welcomed.
This authority is set to be fully up and running next May, the same month when the first East Midlands Mayor is due to be elected. Mansfield MP and Nottinghamshire County Council's leader, Ben Bradley, said: "There's certainly lots of opportunity for us to make the most of these incentives. "When we say we need to have this combined authority and devolution deal to be at the top table, here's another example of where an opportunity is available to combined authority areas. Because we've put ourselves in that position, we're being invited to the top table for the first time, which is great."