The South East England Economic Development Agency is poised for a row tomorrow with local authorities over draft guidance for land use, transport and economic development up to 2016.
It fears that a “restraint-based approach” from Serplan, representing south-east councils, will hit competitiveness and push investment abroad.
Serplan wants to prop up underdeveloped areas by shifting employment growth to them. Seeda agrees with boosting such areas but not in the way Serplan envisages. The areas Serplan wants to boost are the Thames Valley between the M3 and M40, north and central Surrey and the Crawley and Gatwick area.
Financial Times 24/05/99 page 9
