£1.7bn plea to avoid 'mass insolvency' and a 'Great Depression' in Sheffield
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They want £380m to support 25,000 companies that have been hammered by the pandemic and £770m to improve the skills of 35,000 job hunters.
A further £570m is needed for infrastructure, such as transport and housing, they say.
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Hide AdThe enormous figures are in Sheffield City Region’s Renewal Action Plan, fronted by mayor Dan Jarvis and chair of the local enterprise partnership James Muir.
It was started last year but edited and adapted in response to coronavirus.
The cash would be used to boost the region over the next 18 months.
Mayor Jarvis said: “We need the chancellor to support the renewal of our economy, not just its rescue. That means backing our ambitious and wide-ranging Renewal Action Plan in the Comprehensive Spending Review.
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Hide Ad“The chancellor shouldn’t risk trying to drive the recovery from Westminster, when we know mayors and regional leaders are best placed to deliver a jobs-led recovery and level up the economy. That means giving us the resources and powers needed to get on with the job and build a stronger, greener and fairer South Yorkshire.”
The Comprehensive Spending Review will set out the government’s spending plans until 2025. It is set to be published in the autumn,
British employers planned 58,000 redundancies in August, taking the total to 498,000 for the first five months of the Covid crisis, according to the BBC.
Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough MP Gill Furniss believes 1,570 jobs are at risk in her constituency, 114,100 in Yorkshire and more than 1m across Britain.
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Hide AdShe is particularly concerned for those in the wedding industry, events and exhibitions, nightclubs, pubs, festivals, sports venues and theatres, many of which are still closed.
The government’s furlough scheme closes at the end of this month. Its replacement, the Job Support Scheme, is only for staff working at least a third of usual hours.
She said: “In his winter economic plan the Chancellor completely failed to mention these businesses, or acknowledge that they will be forced to remain fully or mainly closed for the next six months.”