West Midlands Gears Up with New Plan

Advantage West Midlands today unveils its blueprint for a £20 billion (about US$37 billion) economic expansion of the region over the next five years.

The development agency has identified 13 key "challenges" that need to be addressed with public sector funding to realise the vision of making the West Midlands a world class region in which to work and live.

The agency hopes its Economic Strategy and Action Plan 2004-2010 will help move the region into Europe's elite economies by channelling £20 billion of public money into major "challenge areas".

The 13 areas cover: enterprise; manufacturing; skills; transport; economic inclusion; innovation; environment; visitor economy; development sites; housing; demographic; international; and image.

The first five have been given high priority status because AWM believes they have the greatest impact on the region and its 5.3 million inhabitants.

This is one to take note of. There are some very interesting "to scale" investments in the plan.

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