As I write this blog, many other scribes up and down this green and pleasant land will be busy putting their finishing touches to the applications to set up Local Enterprise Partnerships – one of the Government’s flagship proposals to improve the country’s economic problems.

We should therefore be finding out quite soon the precise nature of these LEPs which will replace the Regional Development Agencies and Business Link.

What’s worrying is that there are already signs that, in various parts of the country, the private and public sectors are falling out about a host of things. Up in the North East, for instance, a founding member of the Tees Valley Partnership has heavily criticised an LEP bid by Tees Valley Unlimited. He said it was submitted with “insufficient involvement of the business community” and there was confusion, and dismay “verging on anger” at the bid.

What is comforting, though, is the way East Lancashire seems to be going about things.

I recently attended a seminar at the East Lancs Chamber of Commerce (yes folks, Optu.tv is a member…come to one of our seminars!). I was hugely impressed by the presentation given by Mike Damms, the Chamber’s Chief Executive.

East Lancashire, as Mike explained, doesn’t have the benefit of a university in the way that Central Lancashire has with UCLAN at Preston. A university automatically brings in a vast student population which is a great boost to the local economy.

Nor does East Lancs, despite its Pennine grandeur, have the tourism power of Blackpool and the Fylde Coast.

So, for many year now, the East Lancs Chamber has worked steadily…and with great effect…to help small and medium sized businesses to grow and prosper.

Which means that, led by the steady but progressive hands of Mike and his team, East Lancashire is well set to have its own Local Enterprise Partnership mainly because – to all intents and purposes – it has already got one!

Steve Ireland