Mind the Enterprise Gap: Is enterprise policy working to help businesses in deprived areas?

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The Centre for Cities' City Markets Project has surveyed 348 businesses in deprived areas in Derby, Doncaster and Sunderland. This paper presents the results of that survey.

Building enterprise in deprived urban areas is a key policy goal. But relatively little is known about the effectiveness of enterprise initiatives in deprived areas, or about the needs of businesses that are located there. The Centre for Cities' City Markets Project has surveyed 348 businesses in deprived areas in Derby, Doncaster and Sunderland. We have found out about the market factors affecting business location in these areas and the real impact of enterprise initiatives.

Our survey reveals three key findings. First, connectivity is the main asset of these deprived areas. Building on this and other assets is the way forward. Second, business support schemes such as Business Link are not well recognised, but those who use Business Link are reasonably satisfied. And third, the benefits of Enterprise Areas are hardly utilised - only two percent of our sample had used any of them. Click here for information on the research methodology.

Centre for Cities has re-launched as an independent think tank. You can visit them online at http://www.centreforcities.org.

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