One of the top priorities for Breckland Council and its Economic Development Service is the REV Programme, which looks to enable initiatives to be developed and delivered to support significant housing and population growth along the 35 mile corridor between Thetford and Norwich. All initiatives developed by the Council and Partners will seek to create jobs and inward investment in a sustainable way.
The overall REV vision is to:
Establish REV as an exemplar area for local people to live, work and play, whilst contributing significantly to the regional economy, with the lowest possible environmental impact.
To deliver this aim the key objective is to:
Engineer growth in the local and regional economy, improving the social and business infrastructure, whilst keeping to a minimum any detrimental effect on the environment.
Key principles of REV are:
- Growth & Competitiveness
- Building a business community
- Low Carbon
- Inspiring & Innovative
- Local delivery, regional significance
Why is the REV area significant?
- REV joins two areas highlighted for significant growth, Norwich and Thetford
- Thetford and the other market towns along the A11 provide support and foundations that fuels the Norwich growth engine
- Thetford suffers from significant deprivation
- Statistically in terms of jobs, population and its economic contribution the area is significant:
Population42,600 | Number of Companies 1300 | Turnover 1.1bn | Number of Employees 12,000
- The REV area has a lot of prospects and provides an opportunity to marry up the rural and urban environments along with A11 with Norwich for the benefit of the County and region.
What issues / barriers is it looking to address?
The REV Programme will address barriers and issues including:
- Availability of quality business space
- Low skills available within the REV area
- Strategic site development
- Business competitiveness regionally and globally
- Addressing the Government's low carbon agenda
- Creation of quality job opportunities
Who is delivering the programme?
As the majority of the REV area is currently located in the Breckland District, the Breckland Economic Development team has secured resources in order to move the REV programme initiative forward.
However whilst this team will be the driving force behind the programme there is a clear need for many other stakeholders and partners to become involved to maximise the impact and benefit of the programme.
As a an integrated community of businesses will be created that:
- Represent all the major business sectors
- Collectively meet clearly identified standards in terms of environment impact and staff training / development
- Work together forming networks that lead to competitive advantages being achieved
- Benefit by simply being located and associated with the REV area.
