Councillor says Hillhouse Enterprise Zone in Thornton is not creating enough jobs

A leading councilor at Wyre says not enough jobs have been created by the Hillhouse Enterprise Zone.

Coun Rob Fail, the leader of Wyre’s Labour group, says the enterprise zone, based at the former ICI site in Thornton, is underperforming and has created around a third of the jobs expected so far.

What is the Enterprise Zone?

The Enterprise Zone at Thornton was officially launched in April 2016 as part of a Government initiative and is a sister project of the Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone.

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Sign up for our free newsletters now Wyre Council, the accountable body for the Thornton zone, was able to offer business rate relief up to a total value of £275,000 over a five year period when a business moved to the enterprise zone before March 31, 2022.

The idea was that by offering businesses incentives to move to the enterprise zones and by helping them prosper, it could lead to the creation of new jobs.

Concerns raised about jobs

Coun Fail. who raised the subject at Wyre’s latest full council meeting, said a report by council leader, Coun Michael Vincent, did not flag up the extent to which the business park was failing to deliver.

He said: “The leader's report to the January full council meeting stated that little progress had been made at Hillhouse.

“He could have gone on to say the enterprise zone is massively underperforming.

“Although in his latest report he rightly highlights some potentially positive climate change action on Hillhouse, the overall picture is gloomy.

“The Overall and Scrutiny (O&S) Committee does not have a report on the number of jobs gained since June 2023.

“However at the O&S meeting it was reported that up to March 2023 only 135 jobs had been created.”

“With the Enterprise Zone Masterplan boasting that by 2035, job numbers would rise from 1,650 to over 3,000, one would have expected in the region of 450 plus jobs having been created.

“That less than a third of the jobs has been created, with an anticipated 20,000 increase in Wyre’s population in the 2011-2031 Local Plan period, is a real concern. The area is crying out for jobs.”

Coun Fail said Wyre Council’s reaction to this was to lower the jobs target, which would only lead to an increase in the number of people commuting out of Wyre, adding to motorists’ woes and further damaging Wyre’s economy.

He asked if the council was going to address the shortage of jobs and transparently report the figures at future O&S scrutiny meetings at Wyre.

Council doesn’t own site

Coun Vincent replied that the Labour group did not have any ideas themselves about job creation in Wyre and added: “I’ve never denied the Hillhouse site is isn’t performing.

“It is not creating the amount of jobs we wanted it to when we spent a lot of time setting it up as an enterprise zone and I’m as disappointed as anyone else about that.

“The problem is, we don't control and we don’t own the Enterprise Zone.

“In Blackpool they do.

“So why are we not reporting on that figure any more? Because it is beyond our control.”

He said the scrutiny committee was there to report on how the council was performing, not site owner NPL Estates.

The site at Thornton is home to some 40 businesses, some of which are at the forefront of technolgy in the manufacture of plastics and are recognised as global leaders in their field.