From 1st June Neville Reyner (right) will step down from his role as Chair of the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership (LEP) after 15 months in the role.

The Board Members, of which I am one, are now working together to select an Interim Chair and then put in place a recruitment process for a new Chair.

Neville should be proud  of what has been achieved so far, having selected the LEP Board in March 2011, won through in the national competition for an Enterprise Zone with the Alconbury proposal being decided by the Board in partnership, and established the LEP as a Company limited by Guarantee.

More recently, we were able to select strong proposals to go forward for the Growing Places Fund and have put in place an investment sub group so as to address the potential issue of democratic legitimacy in allocation of public funds.

We have also brought in a core team of part-time staff, now led by an interim Executive Director, and established a manageable number of key sub groups who will feed into the overall strategy.

We have also established a LEP Chairs Group with our neighbouring LEPs, and achieved Board sign off for the Operational Business plan going forward.

I wish Neville well for the future.