North West Regional Development Agency

The North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA) is in the news following the resignation of its chairman. Steven Broomhead announced on Wednesday that he is to step down, even though the agency itself will not be axed until April 2012.

User comments on the LEP news story were largely disparaging toward the outgoing chairman. In September, it emerged that the NWDA had spent £20,000 on travel and entertainment in a year, revelations that did not sit particularly well beside complaints that the agency was not doing very much to justify its existence. LEP readers suggested that the Brockholes Brow nature reserve was not a terribly compelling portfolio, although the NWDA also takes credit for much of the development of MediaCityUK, and points to its work with BAE systems in Preston.

The government announced in June that RDAs are to be replaced by Local Enterprise Partnerships by April 2012. So far, it is unclear what role these will take, or how they will be set up.

Despite criticisms of the NWDA, there are fears that its abolition will leave Preston in the lurch, with a NWDA-backed project to regenerate the flag market already having been hit by funding cuts. Martin Wainwright, in The Guardian, agrees, although it remains difficult to assess the impact of the agencies' removal until more is known about the Local Enterprise Partnerships.