ADZs – the future for major projects?
The City Region is well advanced with pioneering plans to persuade the Government to approve the introduction of Accelerated Development Zones (ADZs) in the UK.
Chair of the City Region Board Cllr Whitby has said that the ideas for ADZs are both “radical and unique”. The concept is based on evidence from Chicago and work from the UK’s Core Cities group, which comprises Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield.
Their recommendation followed a report commissioned from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Cllr Whitby said: “While other Core Cities are developing their own proposals ours is the only one on the scale of a City Region.
“Our plans cover a range of transport infrastructure and related projects that would support economic growth on a West-East axis across the City Region.”
The idea is for the City Region to define an area for development which would attract new business investment. At the moment all business rates go straight to the government. Our plan is to agree with government that the City Region would be allowed to retain a proportion of the new business rates generated in the ADZ area. This future income would then be used to borrow the money required to invest in infrastructure and economic development projects in the ADZ area which would generate the new business rate income.
Once the new business rates raised have been used to repay the original loan, government would enjoy that business rate stream thereafter, ad infinitum.
