Discovery Park/ The East Kent Enterprise Zone

Abstract

This paper describes the putting together of the bid for an Enterprise Zone for the Pfizer site at Sandwich in East Kent, and the parallel bid for Regional Growth Funding. It identifies key lessons for those involved in the competitive bidding processes favoured by the Coalition Government in the era after the demise of the Regional Development Agencies. On 17th August, 2011, the Government announced that Discovery Park had been selected as one of 11 enterprise zones to be designated in the second phase of the EZ programme.