Our Vision
East Midlands Freeport's (EMF) vision for the East Midlands focuses on:
Realising our Potential
EMF will drive significant and transformative economic regeneration across the East Midlands through sustainable and inclusive growth, boosting employment and skills opportunities and delivering infrastructure and green investment and innovation, making the East Midlands the destination for focused UK and international investment.
Harnessing our Strengths
EMF is a unique inland Freeport at the heart of the UK’s economy. With its central location, multimodal connectivity (providing EMF access to all parts of the country, including rail access to all coastal freeports), unrivalled manufacturing and logistics base (including the established home for market leading multinational companies) and proximity to universities leading innovation and boosting skills across the region, EMF is uniquely placed to drive sustainable growth.
Founded on the work that universities, industry and the public sector in the region are already undertaking towards global economic challenges, freeport designation will help to make the East Midlands the go-to destination for focused UK and international investment innovation, such as alternative energy solutions and green technologies. It will enable the region and business to leverage the unrivalled depth of skills, technologies and supply chain capacity in the region to drive innovation and growth. EMF will create close to 60,000 new skilled jobs in areas of deprivation in the East Midlands.
A Unique, Cohesive Offer
The three sites that make up the East Midlands Freeport will work together to deliver this vision. Founded on collaboration, investment and innovation, EMF will provide employment and skills opportunities through a large volume of developable land that will accelerate Net Zero commitments, boost the area’s status as a leading innovation hub for green energy, drive international investment and address pockets of deprivation and poor social mobility to support the levelling up agenda. With ambitious goals in job creation, EMF aims to be the most efficient and decisive freeport in terms of responding to inward investment opportunities.
Our Objectives
East Midlands Freeport aims to deliver value to the East Midlands across 10 distinct focus areas:
- Increase local and regional economic activity - by incentivising new innovative, high-value, low carbon investment in the manufacturing and logistics sectors
- Boost international trade in high-value manufacturing goods
- Boost skills levels and opportunities - linking research capabilities with universities and colleges to provide training programmes and support a diverse labour pool
- Support the regeneration of local areas by creating sustainable employment
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions in industrial and energy production
- Develop innovation and enterprise - positioning the region as a centre of excellence for alternative energy sources and green technologies to drive new market opportunities
- Improve physical and digital regional, national and international connectivity and integration
- Enhance labour productivity in key sectors - such as manufacturing and logistics
- Support the levelling up of a region with industrial strengths in manufacturing and logistics that has been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and mitigating the uncertainty of recovery
- Ensure synergy with key strategic initiatives underway in the region - including High Speed 2 (HS2) and the work of the East Midlands Development Corporation, to form part of an ambitious levelling up package for the region