Julian attends the Local Growth Deal Signing
February 19, 2015
Today, Julian attended the formal signing of the York, North Yorkshire & East Riding Local Enterprise Partnership Growth Deal. The event took place at the University of York where the Minister for Universities, Greg Clarke and a wide variety of local businesses and stakeholders were in attendance.
The Growth Deal will focus on York becoming a global leader in food and bio-renewable technology. The Government funding will support a £17 million transformation of the DEFRA Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA) into a National Agri-Food Innovation Campus. This will create up to 800 new highly skilled jobs and will inject an additional £100 million into the local economy around York.
Furthermore, along with the Leeds City Region LEP, a £49 million BioHub project is to be established at the University of York. This will create a highly-flexible laboratory business incubation service to drive the growth of the bio-renewables sector. World-class facilities will also be developed in for the £1 million AgriTech Training Centre at Askham Bryan College, with a further £600,000 invested in the Land Based Engineering Centre of Excellence at the College. The investment is part of a wider commitment to deliver up to 1,245 more students and 275 more apprentices across York, North Yorkshire and the East Riding.
Welcoming the investment, Julian said:
“The Local Enterprise Partnership has played an invaluable role in helping York to become a leading player in state of the art food and agricultural technology. Securing these funds will create hundreds of highly skilled jobs across York, helping to rebalance our economy and strengthen York’s economic recovery.”
