During a regional tour to the North West today, the Prime Minister and Lord Heseltine announced plans to boost growth in all regions of the country.

Meeting members of the Liverpool City Region Shadow Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), the Prime Minister announced he was commissioning Tesco Chief Executive Sir Terry Leahy, a member of the Shadow LEP, Lord Heseltine and other Shadow Board members to produce a regional economic plan that will stimulate growth in Liverpool.

A national LEP summit on growth and competitiveness in the Spring will bring together LEP Chairs from across the country to prioritise action to stimulate growth at a regional level. This will be supported by additional money, to help LEPs understand the real issues facing local businesses, from a LEP Capacity Fund.

During the visit to the North West, the Prime Minister and Lord Heseltine attended a Regional Growth Fund roadshow, part of a series across the country to encourage local businesses and entrepreneurs to bid for money from the Government’s flagship £1.4bn Regional Growth Fund.

The Prime Minister said “In the next few years people all over our country – North, South, East, West – are going to see real change in the way local economies work.

“New Local Enterprise Partnerships – coalitions of business, councils and communities like the one I saw in the Wirral this morning, are already working with business leaders like Terry Leahy to get big local projects off the ground to boost regional growth.

“This is a step change in the way regional growth is driven. And part of that step change is the Regional Growth Fund. We are saying to people – if you’ve got an idea to bring investment and wealth to your area, the £1.4 billion Regional Growth Fund is there to help make those good ideas happen.”

The Regional Growth Fund will operate over three years. The first of at least three bidding rounds is now open and the deadline for proposals is 21 January 2011. Further bidding rounds will be announced in early 2011. More information on criteria for the Fund and the bidding process is available from http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/regional-economic-development/regional-g rowth-fund.

Alongside the announcements on regional growth, the Government is also announcing further details for its £200 million national network of elite Technology and Innovation Centres that will work in partnership with universities and businesses to turn their research into commercial business ideas. For further information visit:http://nds.coi.gov.uk/Content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=417319&a mp;amp;NewsAreaID=2&ClientID=431