East Midlands DevCo appoints Managing Director

A pioneering body that aims to help generate 84,000 new jobs, 10,000 new homes and add billions in value to the East Midlands economy in years to come has taken a major step forward by appointing its first Managing Director.

Richard Carr joins the DevCo having steered multi-billion-pound projects in different parts of the country and will now spearhead the progress of EM DevCo, the body now formally set up to begin laying the foundations for a new kind of statutory development corporation, part of government plans to boost growth through planning reform.

The proposed East Midlands development corporation will help accelerate the planning and development of three major sites centred on the East Midlands Airport area, Toton and Chetwynd and land around Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station.

The decision to set up EM DevCo Limited follows the submission of a detailed business case to Government which highlighted the potential to use the three sites to fuel a step-change in regional economic performance by developing detailed plans for development, infrastructure and investment to benefit the wider region.

Richard Carr becomes DevCo MD on the back of a 25-year career that has seen him work with private and public sectors to drive multi-billion regeneration initiatives.

A former CEO at city, unitary authority and district level, he also has a wealth of experience liaising with government and business.

He will lead an organisation that is currently recruiting a small team of planning and economic specialists who will build momentum behind its work.

Richard Carr said:

I’m delighted to be part of a groundbreaking initiative which aims to shift the dial of economic performance in the East Midlands. It’s no exaggeration to say that this is one of the single most important economic development opportunities across the whole of the UK.

Nor will it be business-as-usual. Our aim is to work with partners, plan carefully and comprehensively, and drive the long-term potential of the three sites in a way which means they can deliver more homes, more business and industrial space and better transport connectivity. We want to hook people up to benefits that bring jobs.

These sites also offer massive potential to embrace new opportunities and help put the East Midlands economy in a position to exploit clean technologies, new ways of manufacturing, and the region’s status as a global gateway for trade.

EM DevCo is being backed by Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire County Councils, North West Leicestershire District Council and Broxtowe and Rushcliffe borough councils.

The DevCo’s progress is reviewed by an Oversight Authority made up of representatives from the five councils, but the company will also be operated under the direction of an independent skills-led board of directors.

A process to recruit private-sector board members is about to get underway. One of the private sector representatives will chair the board.

The DevCo is being supported by the Midlands Engine, which works with partners and Government to promote growth and investment across the region.

Midlands Engine chairman Sir John Peace said:

Upping the pace of regional economic growth is critically important as the UK emerges from Covid and we seek to make the most of the technologies of the future.

I’m thrilled to see this early progress with the DevCo, which has identified opportunities that have the capacity to help the Midlands as a whole to not only grow more rapidly, but to build back better.

Read the full press release.

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