THE chairman of the South West Regional Development Agency has told a Government committee how important the voice of business will be in the makeup of new Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and delivery of economic development work in the future.

Sir Harry Studholme appeared before the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee with the chairs or chief executives of four other regional development agencies after being invited to provide their perspective and lessons learned in developing a sustainable and resilient economy.

RDAs are due to be abolished by the spring of 2012 and some of their functions will be carried out by LEPs — proposed to be joint local authority/business groups.

As revealed in the Echo, councillors and business leaders in Exeter claim that they haven't been properly consulted on plans to create an LEP.

Speaking after the hearing Sir Harry said: "It was an important and welcome opportunity to outline to MPs a number of challenges which are going to be critical in the transition to a different way of structuring economic development.

"RDAs have been uniquely placed to co-ordinate activity and investment, to strategically plan to use scarce resources to best effect, and to bring many partners together on to shared ground.

"Each £1 invested by RDAs has directly benefited regional economies by an average of at least £4.50."