game-changers

While we continue to deliver across all of our key priority sectors, the LEP Board has recently set four game-changing priorities for the future, each bringing additional cross-cutting opportunities across diverse businesses, as well as driving further growth across unrelated sectors. We will lead and position Greater Lincolnshire in our four game changing sectors to include our highly ambitious UK Food Valley programme, creating a top 10 global cluster with the potential to bring an additional £2bn of additional GVA by 2030, and 11,000 jobs. We are developing a clean growth plan with a focus on decarbonisation, offshore wind and hydrogen across Greater Lincolnshire. We will implement the Humber Freeport, bringing 7,000 new jobs and over £2bn of inward investment by 2040. And we are maximising the growth of the RAF, and developing and implementing a defence and cyber security cluster plan.

HUMBER FREEPORT

Our competitive edge in ports and connectivity serving nationally important industries has long supported the growth of UK-leading clusters including offshore renewables, advanced manufacturing, food manufacturing, and energy. Our ports account for over a quarter of all British rail freight movements, and the Humber ports support around 35,000 jobs and add £7.6 billion in GVA to the UK. 

The Greater Lincolnshire LEP, ABP Ports and other partners were delighted to welcome the announcement in the summer, that the Humber is among eight areas of England to receive a new Freeport, following a highly competitive funding bid earlier this year. Our proposition is uniquely placed to deliver on the Government’s agenda to level up and decarbonise our economy, and we expect this opportunity to bring major investment into our part of the world and lead to over 7,000 new jobs for the Humber. 

DEFENCE

Home to the Red Arrows and the RAF, Greater Lincolnshire has a unique opportunity to develop industry and government defence and security capabilities to increase regional wealth through increased inward investment and the creation of high-value, better paid jobs.  Our ambition is to create a cluster of innovation-focused defence companies, linked to the RAF presence already here, and to ensure that Greater Lincolnshire is a highly attractive, first-choice destination for defence-related industries, service leavers and their families, and we’re building on our assets and strengths to boost productivity and enhance the reputation of the UK’s defence sector’s as one of the best places in the world to innovate and conduct business. 

GREEN ENERGY

We cover a diverse mix of energy and heat generation methods here, including the offshore wind industry and innovative anaerobic digestor plants, as well as traditional electricity and heat distribution operations. The sector in Greater Lincolnshire and globally is transforming in response to the climate, to new technologies, and to changing consumer preferences.  

Over just a few years, the Humber Energy Estuary has been transformed into one of the world’s leading hubs for clean energy. It may not be obvious at first, but the transition to Net Zero is a massive opportunity for Greater Lincolnshire, bringing jobs, prosperity and opportunity. Our region’s ports have recently successfully won a bid to become established as a collective Humber-wide Freeport, further speeding the shift towards meeting priority sector targets in green energy, job creation, and UK supply chain logistics. Meanwhile the Humber Estuary is working on a number of exciting collaborations from the Gigastack Project, producing green renewable hydrogen at scale to the large-scale collaboration called Humber Zero, creating a carbon capture and hydrogen hub which gives affordable and low-carbon energy supply and energy storage to industry and the National Grid.