The end of March tends to be a busy time in local government and this year was no exception. A new breed of local organisations, the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) came of age on 31 March, as each of the 39 LEPs fulfilled their obligation to submit their Strategic Economic Plans (SEPs) to the Government's Cities Policy Unit.

The LEPs are engaged in a competitive process to bid for £2bn of Local Growth Fund government spend this year, with a further £2bn planned for each of the subsequent four years.

A few days prior to this, on 26 March, in the run-up to the submission date, the LEP Network met in Church House Westminster, to get their final steer from Greg Clark, the minister for cities, and his team