Our proposal

Greater Lincolnshire is a diverse area made up of rural land, urban centres of differing sizes, coastal communities, and market towns. The rurality can make it difficult for some of our communities to access service centres, presenting barriers to employment, health and wellbeing. 

Urban centres such as Lincoln, Grantham and Boston provide significant employment opportunities and transport linkages, with around 325,000 people living in these centres. In these areas, 15% of children live in low-income households, with 71% of people being economically active across sectors such as advanced manufacturing, food and logistics and public services. However, there are clusters of deprivation where residents suffer from fewer opportunities around work and health. 

Our urban industrial centres such as Scunthorpe and Grimsby are built around heavy industry, including oil, gas, chemicals, steel, mining and renewables. Around 253,000 people live in these areas and face challenges in having the skills needed to take up employment in these and emerging industries, resulting in pronounced areas of economic activity and low social mobility. 29% of adults in Greater Lincolnshire’s urban centres have no qualifications. Improved targeting of skills and education provision will help to close these gaps. 

Greater Lincolnshire benefits from over 50 miles of coastline, with many coastal communities being home to around 29,000 people. The area is at risk of flooding, there is limited infrastructure and often poor-quality housing. These areas see low wage, low skill seasonal employment, high levels of deprivation and lower than average educational attainment levels but will benefit from the targeted investment that the devolution proposals present. 

Much of Greater Lincolnshire is sparsely populated with large areas of open countryside and farmland, interspersed with market towns and hamlets. Over 300,000 people live in rural settings across Greater Lincolnshire, which are often a long way from urban centres. These areas often have lower levels of deprivation but lack the infrastructure to connect them both digitally and physically. This is against a backdrop of younger people moving out of these areas, and older people moving in, placing pressure on service delivery. 

Much like our places, the Greater Lincolnshire economy is diverse. It sees 48,735 businesses, with 25% of all employment being in microbusinesses. Greater Lincolnshire contributes £26bn to the UK economy and accounts for £1.36bn of exports. Greater Lincolnshire covers 7,997 sq. km and is more than six times the size of Greater Manchester City Region. 

Greater Lincolnshire’s low levels of productivity and shrinking working age population create challenges for economic growth and the supply of skilled workers into the economy. The area lags behind the national skills picture with only 25% of the resident population aged 16 plus holding qualifications at level 4 or higher in 2021, compared to 34% nationally. Access to both higher and further education is hampered by poor digital connectivity, limiting the development of the skill-base needed within the population. 

The journey for Greater Lincolnshire is not from a standing start. Councils and business in Greater Lincolnshire have a strong history of working together and are already collaborating to tackle common challenges that until now have held back growth. 

There are a multitude of projects already underway across Greater Lincolnshire and many of our communities have benefited from investment through the Towns Fund and UK Shared Prosperity Funding – both of which help to address levelling up challenges within Greater Lincolnshire. 

However short-term funding pots are not sufficient to achieve the strategic level of change that Greater Lincolnshire needs to see. Our ambitions for devolution seek to deliver the leadership required to address unique long-term challenges across Greater Lincolnshire and maximise the area’s opportunities to deliver future prosperity. 

The purpose of this proposal is to provide the powers, funding and flexibilities required to accelerate progress to address long term challenges and opportunities across Greater Lincolnshire It supports levelling up across the area with a focus improving the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of people who live and work in Greater Lincolnshire. It would see local decision makers creating the conditions for more high wage, high skill jobs, and provides a catalyst to improve learning, training, and pathways into those jobs, raising living standards and levelling up through: 

• Local decisions and long term investment in infrastructure to turbo charge business growth and tackle low business productivity, particularly in key sectors that create high wage, high skills jobs that boost living standards 
• Long term strategic planning and investment to protect our environment and unlock high quality housing in our communities that meets the needs of younger workforce and supports those in later life. 
• Local commissioning of high quality skills, training and pathways to attract and retain younger workers, meet the significant skills needs of our key industries and capitalise on economic opportunity through better alignment of skills, employment, and career opportunities across Greater Lincolnshire 
• A stronger voice regionally and nationally to make the case for more investment on Greater Lincolnshire’s priorities including the UK Food Valley, energy, ports and logistics, delivering on the potential of the area from the Humber to The Wash. 
• Managing water as an asset, to mitigate the threat of coastal erosion and flooding, and meet the area’s unique demands for water to support growth in agriculture and innovations in manufacturing and carbon capture. 

Over the next 10 themes, we set out what we would seek to deliver across our key priority areas to improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of people who live and work in Greater Lincolnshire if this proposal is approved. 

1. Infrastructure which supports the movement of people, goods, and ideas 

Greater Lincolnshire is a large geography combining urban, rural and coastal areas. Whilst constituent councils have made significant investment in local infrastructure a step change is needed to deliver the strategic infrastructure critical for growth and jobs. 

To level up Greater Lincolnshire we will prioritise investment in infrastructure that can boost growth in key sectors of our local economy, this includes the UK Food Valley, Energy, Ports and logistics, all of which have been identified as priorities for the Greater Lincolnshire and wider UK economy. 

As an area vital to supply chains and specialising in logistics, transport infrastructure is essential to maximise the benefit and growth of these sectors. 

Identify and agree new key route network to accelerate the movement of goods and passengers through and around Greater Lincolnshire and work with the Government to secure improvements to key priorities for growth identified within the network, including: 

• Regionally the Trans Midland Trade Corridor is recognised as a priority and north of Lincoln it is of national significance as a strategic north-south transport and economic corridor connecting the Humber ports in the north to the wider network in the south via the A46 and A1 at Newark. The current performance of this corridor holds back productivity and is also a barrier to future growth. 
• The A1 corridor, and it’s links to the A16, A17 and A52, also has a key economic role within the East Midlands, particularly for agri-food, logistics, manufacturing and tourism, with very significant levels of proposed housing (up to 100,000 units) and employment growth – in addition to the potential ‘STEP Fusion’ Facility at the West Burton Power Station site growth. 
• The circulatory road around Lincoln is also a recognised priority to serve the Humber Ports and east coast visitor attractions. 

A multi–year transport infrastructure settlement will provide greater funding certainty to deliver local priorities for road, rail, freight and public transport to boost growth in the Greater Lincolnshire economy and keep our residents moving. The settlement will enable us to plan for road maintenance and potholes over the longer term, with delivery of these functions provided by the constituent councils and funding distributed proportionate to existing budgets. 

Investment in both physical and digital infrastructure is critical to drive business confidence and green growth, but often relies on bids to government and its various agencies. 

Bidding processes are frequently based upon nationally set priorities, there is limited certainty over future funding and locally determined priorities are not necessarily joined up or met. 

We will work with Midlands Connect and Transport for the North which received Government funding to develop a regional Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure strategy. For Greater Lincolnshire, other alternative low carbon fuels, such as hydrogen, will play an important role, particularly for large vehicles that require longer ranges and faster refuelling. We will work with the Sub-national Transport Boards and a new mayoral rural transport group to explore this. 

We will encourage further investment in digital infrastructure such as ultrafast broadband and 5G that the area needs for the future, ensuring rural areas are not left behind. 

2. Modern transport services that connect people to learning, business opportunity, jobs, and services 

Greater Lincolnshire has few motorways, dual carriageways and limited public transport networks. These reduce the opportunities to travel to work, to learning and leisure, and contribute to greater inequality. 

Despite the geographical challenges we face, Greater Lincolnshire has been at the forefront of demand responsive transport, developing innovative services that we intend to expand further as we create a transport network which breaks the link between poor transport connectivity and the skills gap. 

A rural transport group will be established that will lead the national debate on transport in mayoral rural areas, chaired by the Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire. The group will bring together other rural combined authorities to champion innovation and work in partnership with the Department for Transport to identify pilot projects to address rural connectivity and accessibility. 

Locally our proposal would create a single Local Transport Authority for Greater Lincolnshire. This would establish clear transport policies to guide future investment in all forms of transport including bus, cycling and walking to improve travel choices across the area. 

The mayor and members of the combined county authority will work together across Greater Lincolnshire to develop a joined up local transport plan for our area that addresses our challenges and guides future transport investment through a consolidated transport budget. 

Recognising the challenges that rural areas face in the delivery of high quality, sustainable bus services, we will develop a rural bus pilot to connect communities and residents to training and employment. Subject to a funding proposal to Government the pilot will act as a policy test bed for other rural areas. 

We will also work to integrate existing bus service improvement plans to streamline contractual and delivery arrangements for bus services across the area. We will explore bus franchising and provide local accountability for spending of the Bus Service Operators Grant. 

Rail freight is nationally significant, with a quarter of the UK’s freight passing through Greater Lincolnshire. Increasing rail capacity is important to expanding businesses in Greater Lincolnshire and to avoid lack of capacity acting as a constraint on future growth. 

Rail services provide vital connectivity for residents with services linking communities and providing access to higher education and leisure activities. Passenger services will, by the nature of our large and predominantly rural area, be less well used than in major urban areas and this could lead to decisions being taken by operators on the basis of simple market forces. 

Greater Lincolnshire needs a much stronger voice to articulate the local context to influence and inform provision. 

We will seek a new rail partnership with Great British Railways, once established, so that our priorities for passengers and freight can be taken into consideration in future decisions regarding the rail network. The Government will consider Greater Lincolnshire alongside existing devolution areas as a priority for these agreements which will provide the ability to influence local rail services. 

Priorities locally include: 

• Cleethorpes to Manchester (South Pennine Corridor) line speed improvements are a priority for Greater Lincolnshire. Transport for the North is supportive of the ambition. Further work involving Northern Rail and Trans-Pennine Express is required to develop the business case. 
• Cleethorpes to London service is a priority for Greater Lincolnshire, providing access to opportunities and supporting a growing economy. The Department for Transport is considering the case for direct London North East Railways services to and from both Cleethorpes and Grimsby to London, with an opportunity to implement them should the business case be value for money, and funding be available to address timetabling, infrastructure and operational factors. 
• Line speed improvements between Lincoln and Nottingham, to deliver journey time savings on the route are important for growth in our historic city and for the visitor economy along the east coast. 

3. Investing in high quality homes and communities 

The provision of high quality, affordable and well-connected housing is essential to meeting the current and future needs of Greater Lincolnshire residents, as well as the success of our economy. 

We need to have the right housing in the right locations to recruit and retain the younger workforce that our businesses need to grow, to offset a shrinking labour pool and our significant ageing population. New and existing residents expect housing to be high quality and energy efficient and this is also important for improving health outcomes and life chances of residents, particularly in our coastal and more vulnerable communities. 

Delivering new high-quality housing requires development sites to get the right infrastructure at the right time and requires a new approach which enables housing delivery at a pace linked to economic growth. It requires wider infrastructure investment such as from power suppliers whose plans do not always adapt quickly enough to local need and the commercial realities of site development whether for housing or other uses. We will strengthen communication between local areas and the energy providers. 

We will develop a meaningful role in planning our future energy system for net zero and explore how local energy plans could steer strategic network investment in Greater Lincolnshire. We will work with government to explore the potential benefits of and design options for a place-based approach to delivering retrofit measures, as part of the government’s commitment in the Net Zero Strategy to explore how we could simplify and consolidate funds which target net zero initiatives at the local level where this provides the best approach to tackling climate change. 

The cost of delivering major housing schemes in Greater Lincolnshire, mitigating against risks of flooding and addressing gaps in utility supply, mean that there are numerous uneconomical/unviable sites and subsequently fewer homes are available for our communities. Funding is required to intervene, bridge, de-risk and accelerate housing and employment sites. 

We will work with Homes England to overcome viability challenges and the barriers to housing delivery, regeneration and wider housing growth through the development of a pipeline for our area and a clear action plan for delivery. 

Homes England and the government will explore the potential for investing in the delivery of this pipeline through current and future funding streams, including the Affordable Housing Programme. 

With Homes England and the Government we will identify how wider measures – including viability assessments and the planning system – could better support Greater Lincolnshire plans to increase much needed rural affordable housing supply, and in partnership test how Homes England through its strategic plan could assist in this. 

Combined County authorities and Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs) have powers to acquire, develop, hold and dispose of land and property and have powers to facilitate the provision of infrastructure and have been instrumental in unlocking growth in other areas. 

The directly elected mayor will have the power to designate a Mayoral Development Area and to create Mayoral Development Corporations, which will support delivery on strategic sites in Greater Lincolnshire. The mayor and combined authority will also be able to use powers of compulsory purchase to support development, where they have the consent of constituent councils and local planning authorities. 

Where appropriate we will acquire and dispose of land to build houses, commercial space and infrastructure, for growth and regeneration, including investing £8.4 million in brownfield developments. 

Culture, heritage, sport and the visitor economy all play a strong role in supporting places and communities to thrive – and that this effect is maximised when individual decisions take into account the wider context of other plans and decisions being made for an area. 

We will establish a new collaborative partnership, supported by Government and VisitEngland, to share expertise and insight across culture, heritage, sport, communities and the visitor economy in order to maximise the impact of funding and policy decisions, supporting 28,000 workers in the culture and tourism industry. 

4. Raising awareness, inspiration, and access to support our residents to train and upskill for the job they want 

Greater Lincolnshire has a clear vision for our future where our residents benefit from the significant career opportunities presented across our geography and we are pivotal in providing food, energy and supply chain security for the UK. 

There are fantastic career opportunities in Greater Lincolnshire, but often the pathways to achieve a good quality career are unclear. 

In order to meet the significant skills demands predicted from our game changing sectors we will support our residents to understand, and access, a variety of pathways into these highly skilled career opportunities no matter their age or starting point. 

We want to inspire young people in Greater Lincolnshire to seek a career here by raising awareness of the range of new industries and exciting opportunities which many of them do not know about. 

We want all people living in Greater Lincolnshire to be able to access a high quality careers service so that they can receive information, advice and guidance to access training and development opportunities available to succeed in their career goals. 

They are often unaware of what is available, finding the skills system difficult to navigate because of the inconsistent and the “stop start” nature of the funding, often from multiple pots and agencies. Having a single long-term strategic approach aimed at all ages will enable us to overcome those challenges and take people through these arrangements seamlessly. 

We will provide long term funding to the Greater Lincolnshire Career Hub to provides high quality, local industry led, face to face careers information, advice, and guidance for all ages. 

We will work with the government and partners within Greater Lincolnshire to ensure a shared focus on careers education and advice for young people. This is particularly crucial given the ageing population of Greater Lincolnshire and the need to increase awareness of new high skill high wage career opportunities across the area and the pathways available to residents to achieve a good quality career locally. 

We will convene local, regional and national stakeholders to bring business, careers and skills together and align careers provision with devolved adult education commissioning activities to ensure a more place-based and joined- up approach to careers education locally. 

5. Growing skills capacity for the future 

A proportion of our working age population left school with few, if any, qualifications, often working in seasonal and casual roles. We have lower levels of young people progressing into a traditional higher education pathway, with families needing or choosing to earn rather than learn. 

We will reverse this trend by connecting learning to the career opportunities across Greater Lincolnshire, getting more young adults to develop the skills and qualifications that are needed most:, 

• Providing clean energy for UK homes through a multitude of decarbonisation projects and the growth of our world leading offshore wind farms will only be possible if we can develop a skilled workforce for the future. 
• We need a pipeline of young people and adults to drive forward the rapid technological innovation in the food sector; whether that be seafood, poultry or fresh produce. 
• Our ambition to secure the nation’s supply chain through our ports and transport network can only be realised if our residents know about, and are able to access, the bespoke technical training required. 

We will take responsibility for the devolved Adult Education Budget (AEB) from academic year 2026-2027. This will provide the freedom to flex and focus funds on local skills and training priorities in a way which is difficult to achieve with regional or national commissioning. 

Devolution of this funding will provide certainty to local providers when they take a risk to address local problems without being sure that there will be a long-term market for that provision. Devolution of AEB will also enable us to fund specialist providers, linking to key industries and being flexible to different opportunities (for example, the construction phase of major investments will require different levels and skills of staff to the operational phase) and to ensure that learners have the building blocks needed to progress and succeed in higher level learning, leading to better paid jobs. 

Free Courses for Jobs (FCFJ) offer level 3 qualification designed to help improve job opportunities and could lead to applicants earning a higher wage. Funding for these courses will also be devolved as part of a local joined up approach to learning. 

We want the provision of skills in Greater Lincolnshire to be flexible and able to respond to gaps in the labour market, particularly where these restrain growth in our game changing sectors. We intend to build on our expertise to provide a more responsive skills offer that meets the needs of business and residents. 

We will work with the Government, employers and education providers across Greater Lincolnshire to deliver on Local Skills Improvement Plans that sets out the current and future skills needs of employers and how local 
provision needs to change to help people develop the skills they need to get good jobs and increase their prospects. 

As a member of the joint Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Education Mayoral Combined Authority Advisory Group we will work together on our strategic priorities for employment and develop the links between job centres and very local job opportunities. 

6. Investing to achieve net zero, to drive productivity and to grow jobs 

Greater Lincolnshire is at the forefront of the UK’s offshore energy production, hydrogen production and innovation and the development of decarbonisation for heavy industry. This offers significant opportunities for local businesses and supply chains to expand and create more high value jobs for Greater Lincolnshire’s residents. Growth in these technologies and industries requires new infrastructure such as the energy grid capacity, water supply and pipelines. 

We will work with the government to commission studies for infrastructure improvements that would be needed across the whole of Greater Lincolnshire to support growth in green jobs, major energy production sites and a geological disposal facility if it were to be sited in Greater Lincolnshire, including flood defences and transport links. 

Greater Lincolnshire’s energy and low carbon sectors are national leaders, and our geology provides significant opportunities for further growth. Taking advantage of these opportunities requires input from several different government departments and from global business, higher education, and local authorities. 

We will use a commitment from Government to bring these stakeholders together to agree a plan for developing the unique infrastructure required in Greater Lincolnshire to transform the energy intensive industries which are typically found in northern Lincolnshire, enable carbon capture and storage and other green growth as long as it is compatible with the natural environment. The Humber Energy Board would have a key role to play in this. 

With these in place we will establish the UK’s first net zero carbon industrial cluster by 2040 which will capture and store around 10% of UK carbon dioxide emissions and develop blue and green hydrogen infrastructure, production and associated technology. 

Growth in green industries across Greater Lincolnshire is also dependent upon having a skilled workforce that can help business to innovate and expand, creating more high skill high wage jobs. As we establish the UK’s first net zero carbon industrial cluster, we will provide residents with the opportunity to develop the skills needed to obtain new green jobs and be part of what has been described as the next industrial revolution. 

Through a greater role in delivering devolved funding streams and devolution of the Adult Education functions and administration of funding from 2026, we will train people at a local level in the skills needed to obtain green jobs. 

7. Investing to take advantage of our unique natural environment in a responsible way, whilst protecting our communities from climate change impact 

With coastal and low-lying regions, our diverse geography is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with high risks from flooding impacting on homes, communities and limiting coastal tourism to the warmer seasons. Inland our ambitions for the UK Food Valley, UK food security and growth in green industries are dependent upon on the supply the water needed for agriculture and the growing demand for water for decarbonisation. 

Water management is a crucial aspect of both climate resilience and economic growth for Greater Lincolnshire. 

We will establish a new enhanced partnership for water that works with Government and seeks to protect the country from food shortages caused by floods and droughts. Our partnership will co-commission flood prevention and water management programmes to support agriculture, tourism, green growth and new housing. 

The Greater Lincolnshire Coast is home to important nature reserves including the Lincolnshire Coronation Coast National Nature Reserve, the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Lincolnshire Coastal Country Park and a variety of sand dunes, saltmarsh, mudflats and freshwater marshes (some of which attract Site of Special Scientific Interest status), which support many breeding and wintering birds, natterjack toads, special plants and insects. 

It is also an important energy centre – with the Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery, gas power stations at South Killingholme, Immingham and South Humber, the Viking Link interconnector with Denmark and the Orsted offshore wind farm hub which includes the Hornsea 1 and 2 sites. Hornsea 1 being the largest offshore wind farm in the world. 

Government and partners in Greater Lincolnshire have long held the ambition to form a strategic coastal partnership to manage the relationship between nationally significant energy infrastructure and the protection of the natural environment and achieving local benefits for the key wildlife sites along the coast – maintaining their importance for tourism and the minimisation of the recreational disturbance of nature. 

We will convene a Coastal Partnership which will ensure that the nature, culture and heritage of the Lincolnshire Coast are given a voice and consideration to ensure that tourism and economic development can take place in parallel with the restoration of the natural and historic environment. Relevant government departments and their arm’s length agencies will attend as full members. The Coastal Partnership will run from the Humber to The Wash. 

Greater Lincolnshire is a largely rural, low-lying landscape including nationally important natural treasures such as lime woods, chalk streams, saltmarsh and the only area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) in the East Midlands covering the Lincolnshire Wolds. Farmland forms an important part of our working rural landscape. Its protection for agricultural use is hugely important for a significant proportion of jobs in food production, processing and logistics across the area and our ambitions to deliver on UK food security. 

Devolution provides the opportunity to work even more closely with Government to identify environmental priorities that could be incorporated into new environmental land management schemes – such as protection for top grade farmland across the UK Food Valley in Greater Lincolnshire. We will work with DEFRA and the farming community to develop a new approach that ensures an appropriate balance between sustainable food production and climate and environment outcomes, including considering possible place-based research. 

Our long-established and collaborative Local Nature Partnerships with a tradition of working co-operatively provide us with the opportunity to accelerate the drive towards nature recovery, to tackle both climate change and biodiversity loss. 

We will work with government and local partners to implement a local nature recovery strategy to promote a balance between biodiversity and growth, strategic natural flood prevention and enable creation of new habitats to offset developments and to attract private investment into nature’s recovery within our area. 

8. Driving innovation, enterprise and adoption of new technologies 

Greater Lincolnshire has a long history of innovation and is known for nationally significant sectors in food and agri-tech, defence and low carbon energy. We want to keep up the momentum of our advancement in renewables, robotics, digital logistics, seafood processing and food agri-tech by increasing the level of innovation, investing in our innovation eco system and by attracting and placing more graduates to work across our growing clusters and contribute to the UK’s ambition to become a science superpower. 

We want more businesses across Lincolnshire to access innovation programmes and be supported to compete for funding through streamlined processes that can unleash further creative innovation in our key sectors and places. 

We want more people to progress into further and higher education and more businesses to take up the opportunities of working closely with a college or university on innovation and technology. We will promote and build on the Graduates into SMEs schemes, further reinforcing the links between education and knowledge transfer whilst also addressing cost and return within smaller business enterprises. 

Innovation and growth in our game changing sectors of Food and agri-tech, low carbon energy and decarb, ports and logistics and Defence will add significant economic value to UK plc and the local area. However, Greater Lincolnshire has a high population of micro businesses, who whilst agile and entrepreneurial, often do not have the capacity to engage on innovation competitions and can find bidding for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and other innovation competitions restrictive and a constraint on innovation in fast moving industries. 

Our analysis shows that there are significant business investments in innovation which in turn will often drive their supply chain’s own investment in innovation. These investments are underpinned by programmes such as productivity Hub, Catapult, Made Smarter, and Freeport Innovation Partnerships. Businesses can also access R&D tax credits, and their motivation to innovate can be driven by legislative changes rather than by business leaders identifying productivity gains. The picture of innovation support and motivation is complicated. 

We will develop a new place-based Innovation Board, which will bring together local leaders with representatives from research organisations and industry to develop a clear innovation strategy, and provide a single voice to strengthen engagement with government and its delivery bodies , and ultimately improve access to support and explore opportunities for local businesses. This will develop closer long-term collaboration with The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and other Government agencies. 

The government recognises the nationally significant role that Greater Lincolnshire plays in maintaining food security. The region produces one eighth of England’s food and has nationally significant clusters in food production, food processing, fresh produce and seafood processing. Greater Lincolnshire is home to the UK Food Valley an initiative which seeks to provide economic benefit to the area based on the food sector’s strength whilst also strengthening domestic food supply. 

Greater Lincolnshire is home to Europe’s largest food agri-tech, automation and robotics research cluster, attracting businesses which are investing heavily in automation. Recognised by the Department for Business and Trade as a High Potential Opportunity (HPO), to design, manufacture and commercialise automation and robotics technologies, growth in these tools will reduce the need for hard to fill low wage seasonal jobs in agriculture and replace them with high skill high wage roles. The area is leading national efforts to reduce carbon emissions from food production and manufacturing, with a focus on how new technology and skills, new energy sources and production processes can be used to reduce the carbon emissions from production, processing, transport, and storage of food. 

We will support further growth in the agri-tech sector through an agricultural growth zone, creating a centre to support agriculture and developing a skills pipeline to attract the next generation into the industry. We will work with the Government to ensure an appropriate balance between sustainable food production and climate and environment outcomes, including considering possible place-based research and to deepen engagement with food and drink manufacturing SMEs 

We will establish a UK Food Valley Board focus to support the sector and attract the right skills needed to deliver new food chain automation and digital technology and wider innovation within the food valley that supports the UK’s ambition to become a science superpower. The board will produce a clear and measurable strategy for UK Food Valley. Defra will meet annually with the board to discuss key topics of value to its members. 

9. Increasing employment opportunities through recruitment pathways and work-based training into higher skilled employment 

We want to maximise the potential of all of our residents in Greater Lincolnshire supporting them whether they are leaving one sector to retrain in another, moving from economic inactivity into training or work, or to train to progress in their existing employment. 

As society changes, we know that many jobs across Greater Lincolnshire will be affected in some way, either by being made obsolete, or by the role changing through the introduction of new technologies. It is vital that we develop pathways that help businesses and the workforce to overcome barriers to accessing the wide range of training that Greater Lincolnshire has to offer. 

Unlocking the potential and harnessing the knowledge and experience of our residents who are not currently working can also help grow our economy. We need to offer more support to get those of working age to be economically active and provide an appropriately skilled and available labour pool. 

We will collaborate with the local Department for Work and Pensions Jobcentre Plus and regional DWP Strategic Partnership Managers to develop local programmes that meet local needs and complement national employment provision. 

We want the provision of skills in Greater Lincolnshire to be flexible and able to respond to gaps in the labour market, particularly where these restrain growth in our game changing sectors. To address some of our employment and skills issues and opportunities, we will commission activity which complements, but is not funded by, mainstream programmes. 

We will support Greater Lincolnshire businesses by providing Skills Bootcamps to quickly raise skills levels in those occupations which have hard to fill vacancies in critical roles. 

We will develop and deliver targeted local programmes through devolved funding streams such as the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and the Adult Education Budget to address the unique and diverse challenges across the region. 

10. Creating a ‘whole system’ approach to getting more people into better paid work 

Everyone, irrespective of their background, should be able to get the help that they need to get the job that they want. Greater Lincolnshire is a diverse area where social mobility is extremely polarized. This means that people born into low-income families, regardless of their talent, or their hard work, do not have the same access to opportunities as those born into more privileged circumstances. 

The constituent councils in Greater Lincolnshire are responsible for caring for the most vulnerable in society, and evidence shows that young people who leave care and transition into good quality employment will often thrive successfully. 

All public bodies in greater Lincolnshire create jobs, and can support young people leaving care to achieve a positive start to their careers and adult life. 

We will work with the Department for Education to maximise the number of care leavers in employment. This will include encouraging public bodies across Greater Lincolnshire to provide ring-fenced apprenticeships and work-experience opportunities for care leavers. We will also work with DfE’s delivery partner for the care leaver covenant (Spectra) and local businesses to encourage them to offer employment opportunities to care leavers.