Advantage West Midlands investing to make region a Low Carbon Economic Area

• Mar. 20 by Manish Patel (0)

Advantage West Midlands have announced they will be investing £19.5 million in new Low Carbon Vehicles Technology (LCVT) to help make the West Midlands a Low Carbon Economic Area.

The agency has said that the LCVT programme will create between 3,000 and 11,500 jobs in the UK by 2020.

The South West and the North East are already Low Carbon Economic Area’s and the Midlands is set to follow.

Automotive industry

Roger Allonby, who is Head of Tourism Development Policy, feels that the automotive industry has a huge part to play in making the West Midlands a Low Carbon Economic Area (LCEA).

‘We need to build on the strengths of the automotive industry.

We already have an Automotive cluster group who work with Jaguar, Tata Motors and Land Rover. Car manufacturers will have a key role in the LCEA.

The purpose of the LCVT initiative is to accelerate the number of Low Carbon Vehicles produced.”

Advantage West Midlands have already invested £50 million to low carbon vehicle initiatives along with EMDA (East Midlands Development Agency). Both agencies will advance low carbon solutions for technologies such as aerodynamics and motors.

Jobs

Allonby added that the programme will generate a new merging market of Low Carbon Vehicles and hopes that the number of jobs created will grow.

‘I’m confident that this programme will create many job opportunities for the people of the West Midlands.

We are already collaborating with the Universities of Aston, Birmingham, Coventry, Loughborough and Warwick as well as other regional development agencies.’