Regional growth fund: Round two

Over 200,000 jobs are being either created or safeguarded by the latest regional growth fund money being unveiled today.

Ministers have backed 119 bids for the £900,000 billion pot by businesses and local partnerships as they seek to create new jobs, attract private investment and expand their operations.

Around 37,000 jobs are directly created. The successful bids include an urban regeneration project for the centre of Bradford, a research and development project working towards a new Bentley engine and money for the development of new kilns for a ceramics company.

Labour has criticised the regional growth fund as being an inadequate response to the current economic situation.

The prime minister has promised an "all-out mission" for jobs but the opposition says the £1.4 billion spent over three years is a third of the funding which had been allocated to Labour's regional development agencies, which spent that amount each year.

The government's investment of £950 million is supported by nearly £6 billion of private investment, however.
 

Clegg: Investment will jump-start growth

Labour: Regional growth fund money doesn't amount to much

Bentley: What the successful RGF bid means for us