During last week’s Budget, the chancellor announced that a total of 21 new enterprise zones will be created across the UK in areas in need of economic revitalisation (so, that’ll be most of the country, then?).
The idea behind an enterprise zone is to encourage investment and economic growth within a particular geographical area. The Government hopes to achieve this by offering the following benefits:
→ Discounted business rates worth up to £275,000 for eligible businesses.
→ Simplified planning laws.
→ Access to super-fast broadband.
→ Helping the local economy by ensuring that business rates are kept within the area.
The new enterprise zones may well encourage more freelancers to stray from the capital and move into regions of the country previously unconsidered. Provision of super-fast broadband would be key factor in this, along with the ability to source clients from within the area as other businesses move in. Cheaper living costs may also tempt a few cash-strapped freelancers to move away from more expensive city locations.
In some ways, this highlights one of the main flaws of the enterprise zones which were created between 1981 and 1996. The common consensus is that they were a failure. Rather than providing the launchpad for new business start-ups and regeneration by a renewed spirit of enterprise, they merely attracted businesses and talent from other areas. In other words, they were relocation zones.
Nonetheless, with more businesses setting up within a localised area, it does, in theory, offer the potential for start-ups to latch on to the increased economic activity within the area. Local pubs will surely benefit.
With zones being set up in Birmingham, Solihull, Leeds, Tyneside, Bristol, the Black Country, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Sheffield, among other places; will we enter the era of a more geographically widespread freelance workforce, or will remote working continue to make geographic location irrelevant?
Photo by Nothing to Hide – CC
