Businesses are being urged to lobby regional chiefs to bring an enterprise zone to the district.

Chancellor George Osborne announced in his Budget that the Leeds City Region of 11 local authorities – including Bradford – would host one of the zones.

Companies relocating to it would benefit from significant tax breaks and relaxed planning legislation.

The move could create jobs on a large scale and areas such as the Leeds-Bradford and Canal Road and Airedale Corridors have been suggested as sites for the scheme.

A meeting of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), a public-private body set up to decide where the zone should be, will have its first meeting this month.

Councillor Adrian Naylor, Bradford Council Conservative group spokesman for the economy, said: “What we need to do is make sure that everybody in the business community is lobbying the LEP in some way for this to work for the benefit of Bradford.”

Council leader Ian Greenwood, the district’s representative on the LEP, said Bradford needed to be “really careful” not to create a situation where existing companies and jobs are “destroyed”.

He voted in favour of a successful Conservative motion to the full Council this week calling for the local authority to ensure Bradford businesses are “well placed to secure the benefits of such a zone”.

Liberal Democrat group leader, Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, said: “We would clearly like to see enterprise zones created that help us to improve the skills base, allowed flexibility around taxation for businesses but not create a grant regime, which has, historically, led to dependency.”

A note of caution was sounded by Harold Robinson, president of Bradford Chamber of Commerce, who said: “We need to be wary about scrambling to get an enterprise zone in Bradford at any cost. Yes, there are some benefits if they are set up right and operate in the right way, but there are some dangers too.”

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