City Deals In The West Midlands

19 February 2013, 06:00

Last summer, eight of England's largest cities confirmed deals with the Government to boost local growth.

Now twenty more cities will get the green light to go ahead and negotiate plans to get the freedom, powers and tools needed to shape their economic future. 
 
The deals will be reached between Government and cities so that local areas can bid for new powers that will enable them to grow. In return for cities' strong plans for growth the government will devolve financial and planning powers to let cities take charge of their own destinies - from autonomy over how to spend their training and skills budgets, to creating local investment funds to build roads and unlock developments.

Black Country: want to use a City Deal to grow their high-value manufacturing sector. They want to build on the Black Country's track record in designing, building and exporting components and products such as aircraft control systems, turbo technology and an extensive range of automotive components. 

Coventry and Warwickshire: want to use a City Deal to capitalise on existing strengths in advanced manufacturing and engineering and to support the expansion of this sector. Coventry and Warwickshire want to grow these sectors by raising the skill levels of the workforce by increasing the number of people with intermediate and high level engineering skills and encouraging greater innovation in the sector. 

Stoke and Staffordshire: want to use a City Deal to build on strong heritage to become the internationally competitive home for Advanced Materials businesses in Europe. They want to grow the advanced materials (metals, ceramics, polymers, etc.) sector and to promote the use in advanced manufacturing.