Ambitions to transform the economy of the region take another step forward today as 10 new Enterprise Zone sites go live – four of them in or on the edge of Ipswich.
Secured by New Anglia LEP and its local authority partners, the sites across Suffolk and Norfolk will help to create 18,500 jobs in the 25-year lifetime of the zones, including 5,000 jobs by 2021.
Benefits to businesses who move on to the sites include business rate discounts of up to £275,000 over five years, simplified planning and access to superfast broadband.
Mark Pendlington, chairman of New Anglia LEP said: “Suffolk and Norfolk is already home to a thriving Enterprise Zone in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft at the heart of our all-energy coastline. Today we can extend that success, to 10 new sites across the East giving businesses locally, nationally and internationally the tools to begin a new venture or move their ideas forward and help create even greater momentum, wealth and success. Key locations across Suffolk and Norfolk include King’s Lynn in the west and Wells-next-the-Sea in the north, along the A14 corridor with Stowmarket and Bury St Edmunds and helping us shape our Ipswich Vision in the south. They will be a magnet for inward investment helping create thousands of jobs, enterprise and prosperity for their communities and our wider economy.”
The Ipswich area zones are: