Twenty-one new enterprise zones - with significant planning, tax and business rate powers - will be established to help kick-start sub-national economic growth, chancellor George Osborne's Budget has revealed.

Following weeks of speculation about the design of the new zones, Mr Osborne announced on 23 March that he has selected ten areas that will operate the first wave, and made public his desire to link the new zones to the success of the coalition's Local Enterprise Partnerships – thereby handing councils a significant say in how the zones will operate.