County Cllr Bill Winlow said yesterday that “Lancashire Liberal Democrats  place business very high on the Lancashire political agenda and we are particularly interested in environmental sustainability and in green industries – an area where there remain significant unfulfilled opportunities.

“Should we be in a position of influence following the elections in May, we would wish to set aside additional resources (£5m) to be made available to the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to supplement the £20m worth of Growing Places resources from central Government.  This would be specifically targeted at environmentally sustainable businesses, and would be a revolving funding pot generating the same private sector leverage (6:1) as the Growing Places fund. Further, we would provide additional funding of about £1m over 4 years, via the LEP, for a programme of engagement with Lancashire businesses to access additional funding sources.

“The job of Lancashire County Council (LCC) is to provide services to the people of Lancashire, particularly the young, elderly and the disabled, but LCC is constrained by severe budgetary pressures. We would therefore set aside funds to deliver projects to support longer term cost reductions,  thereby  reducing  the need for service reductions over the course of the next medium term financial strategy. In order to reduce costs to council taxpayers we would also encourage and invest in the creation of new shared services with districts, other counties, mutually owned social enterprise and the private sector as appropriate.

“We look forward to activating our proposals which combine economic competence with a caring approach to the society in which we live“, he concluded