Earlier today, local MP, Henry Smith, wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister, Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP, requesting his consideration to award Crawley ‘City Deal’ status.
The Government is giving England’s cities new powers and freedoms through City Deals, which are agreements between government and a city that give the city control to:
- take charge and responsibility of decisions that affect their area
- do what they think is best to help businesses grow
- create economic growth
- decide how public money should be spent
Local MP, Henry Smith, said:
“A Crawley City Deal would give our town the freedom, power and tools to be really innovative in designing whole new ways of building a stronger regional economy and more affluent community.
“Youth unemployment has more than halved to 3.2 per cent and this City Deal would see local business, civic and education leaders in Crawley reduce that rate even further. Despite the number of apprenticeships having increased locally by 89 per cent, by helping to grow local small and medium sized businesses, we can encourage and support more to build on that success by taking on even more trainees and apprentices to ensure that skills and talent remain in our town.
“As such, I have today written to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is responsible for awarding City Deals, notifying him of the significant benefits that would be reaped, not just for Crawley but also the wider region. To support this point, I informed Nick Clegg that the latest Centre for Cities annual ‘Cities Outlook’ shows Crawley to be not only well placed in the economic recovery but proactively leading the way, with rankings for many of the key economic indicators rating it amongst the top 10 of the UK’s 64 cities.”
In terms of employment and skills, Crawley ranks amongst the UK’s 64 cities as:
- 1st highest proportion of private sector employment and lowest proportion of public sector jobs; with 4.2 private sector jobs to every local public sector job;
- 5th highest private sector employment growth; and
- 7th lowest Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) claimant count;
- 7th largest business stock per 10,000 people;
- 8th lowest percentage of individuals with no formal qualifications.
In terms of socio-economic impact, Crawley ranks as:
- 3rd highest weekly earnings;
- 2nd lowest levels of inequality; and
- 5th largest life satisfaction increase.
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Notes
Source: Centre for Cities, ‘Cities Outlook 2014’, January 2014