The government's Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) was part of the 2005 budget. It was intended for councils who qualified for the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund because of relative deprivation and the government provided all such councils with pump -priming funds to help them to put a bid together. North East Lincs used their share to employ SQW Ltd for this purpose.

There were 15 councils in the first round, and North East Lincs were one of 10 in the second round. The full bid can be downloaded from here. It is inevitably long, but for such a document, it is readable, informative, and sets out a detailed plan for achieving the LEGI objectives.

Councils were expected to plan their LEGI to cover a good ten years. North East Lincs did so, and will receive £18.7 million for the first three years. Then, given a good start, there will be more to follow.

The main purposes of the LEGI initiative can be summarised in terms of the desired outcomes as:
1. To increase local business start-ups.
2. To support the growth , and reduce the failures, of local businesses
3. To attract inward investment and franchising

The North East Lincs bid document provides evidence of weaknesses in our local economy. One example takes the number of VAT registrations per 10,000 of the 15+ population. In N E Lincs in 2004 it was 23, as against 39 for the whole of England. This indicates the measure of how far the N E Lincs economy is below the national average.
The bid document then sets the targets for raising our local figures to match eventually the national ones.

Thus there are targets given for increasing the proportion in employment, the number of self employed, and the number of new enterprises. For example, LEGI should help to produce some 1894 new enterprises by 2022.

And how is this to be done? It has to bring about a complete change in community cultures. The "E-Factor" keeps popping up and is a key concept. It is meant to mean not just "enterprise" but also "empowerment" and "engagement". Aspirations have to be raised, and self confidence developed. It means making contact with individuals.The difficulties of involving people, especially in the most deprived areas, are not underestimated.

The bid lists a number of partners who will contribute with agreed amounts of time and effort. LEGI will also, of course, fit into existing local projects, such as Neighbourhood Renewal interventions, and of course into the Authorities other long term plans.

So, finally, we can see that the scheme is indeed an ambitious one. If it succeeds it will bring real home grown prosperity to Grimsby, Cleethorpes, and Immingham.