Councillor Tudor Evans OBE (The Leader of the Council) introduced the Freeport update report and highlighted:

a)     The Freeport was a continuation of themes already present in Plymouth such as net-zero, good growth, green investment, well-paid jobs and innovation;

b)    The Freeport could be used to unlock national opportunities, including pursuance opportunities like Celtic Array and the importance to improve the national grid, also a priority of the Great South West;

c)     Carlton Power’s 10MW hydrogen hub project at Langage, was the first of its kind in the South West and was earmarked to enter operation in 2025 and would help Imerys and Sibelco achieve their sustainability goals;

d)    Babcock had a £40m contract in partnership with Devon defence vehicle designer and manufacturer Supacat, which would deliver 90 new jobs and enable Babcock to expand its operations in the Freeport’s South Yard tax site, with an initial order to manufacture 70 ‘Jackal’ military vehicles;

e)     ABP Port Improvements would utilise £1.3m of Freeport seed capital, plus private sector match, to facilitate higher volumes of freight and increase short sea shipping potential;

f)      Capital Programme Funding of £55m included 2 new Council direct developments at Oceansgate and Langage;

g)     Private sector investment was expected to reach nearly £250m which would bring the total investment to over £300m;

h)    The Freeport was planning for 3,584 jobs from inclusive starter roles through to high value technical roles; 2,745 would be jobs that would pay above the average wage;

i)      10 % of jobs created would be filled by inactive claimants and people registered unemployed, and 300 to 500 people would be upskilled per annum.

Ian Cooper (Operations Manager, PASDF), Nina Sarlaka (Inward Investment and Enterprise Manager), James Whitelock (Head of Oceansgate Infrastructure) and David Draffan (Service Director for Economic Development) added:

j)      A run through of the PASDF governance structure, posts filled and an update on plans to fill the remaining vacant roles;

k)     The centrepiece of the ambitious net zero agenda was the green hydrogen plant which included the 10MW plant at Langage which Carlton Power was bringing forward;

l)      In the original business case for the Freeport, the Council’s part of that had included an innovation centre, a substantial scheme for which £7.2m of seed capital had been secured, but it needed an additional £10m of levelling up funds, but this was unsuccessful so the project at Oceansgate had had to be re-scoped considerably to ensure the seed funding from Freeport was used;

                         i.         The seed funding would be split between the project at Oceansgate and another at Langage which had planning consent;

                       ii.         The development at Oceansgate would consist of workshop units over 1,700sqm using £3.2 million of the seed funding and approximately the same in service borrowing;

                      iii.         The development at Langage would be known as Beaumont Way and was planned to be 4,615sqm (around 3 times the size of the Oceansgate development) and would be soon ready to go out to tender;

                      iv.         Combined, the two schemes would come close to achieving the job creation goals promised through the Freeport;

m)   The investment strategy was running parallel with the capital programmes to establish an international hub for trade and supporting businesses to bring forward custom site at their premises within the Freeport outer boundary was a key priority;

                         i.         One business in the defence sector had a custom site near ready to activate in Autumn 2023, a second innovative electronics/technology manufacturing company had commenced their HMRC application and three other companies had submitted, or intended to submit their expressions of interest to HMRC;

n)    The trading investment pipeline across all three sites was shown and it was positive that there was demand from the Freeport’s key sectors of marine and defence;

o)    A second resident company in South Yard in marine autonomy that was a global innovation lead that worked on contracts with the UK and US defence departments would be announced in the following weeks that would create a further 30 well-paid, highly skilled jobs;

p)    Fortnightly meetings were held to discuss the trading investment pipeline attended by the Freeport team and representatives from the three local authorities, and these meetings fed into the quarterly trade and investment subgroup;

q)     The Freeport was about opportunity, growth and supporting the deprived communities of Plymouth.

In response to questions it was reported:

r)     The possibility of whether a small number of the roles that could go to people registered unemployed could go to care experienced young adults would be explored;

s)     Ian Cooper would speak to Carlton Power about the specifics of the electricity used to power the hydrogen plant outside of the meeting and provide an update to be circulated to members;

t)     Any areas that required over 5% of additional jobs was identified as a challenge to achieve and the area with the biggest challenge was shipbuilding;

                         i.         The PASDF were working with partners in Plymouth and local FEHE partners to identify the gaps in skills, support and promote the relevant institutions to build a pipeline of talent;

                       ii.         Princess Yachts and the Freeport had worked with Plymouth City College to improve the availability of carpenters;

u)    PASDF was engaging in a number of forums, attended by freeports from around the country that had been established by central government to facilitate learning and crossover applications, as one of the overarching principles of UK freeports was to not function in competition with one another but to support each other and share knowledge, all with the goal of boosting UK PLC and economic growth;

v)     PASDF had led on a range of issues including Net Zero and continued to work with a campus-approach to leverage existing talent and expertise and focusing that on marine autonomy research and development;

w)   Part of the gateway criteria for each of the companies the PASDF were looking to have at their sites, was around their existing and future plans for apprenticeships and work experience, and Tina Brinkworth (Head of Skills and Post 16) contributed to the skills team at the Freeport, also engaging with the successful skills launch pad in Plymouth;

x)    PASDF was, at that time, promoting the custom opportunities available to businesses within the out boundary of the Freeport and had aligned their activity with the Chamber of Commerce and Plymouth Manufacturers Group, as well as updating the Freeport website to better explain the customs benefits and process;

                         i.         Benefits included imports coming in from overseas being exempt from tariffs whilst they remained in the tax site;

                       ii.         Raw materials could be manufactured to add value and if they were re-exported outside of the UK, no tariff would be paid;

                      iii.         Businesses holding a lot of inventory in in warehousing could have tariffs held in suspension if it was held within the customs site to unlock or ease cash flow and move productivity forward;

y)     Lobbying would be taking place to change timelines for benefits as the Freeports were affected by the COVID19 pandemic, something most Freeports agreed on;

z)     There were a number of models of customs operator and the one in the outer boundary was particularly for individual site businesses, which was being explored with a number of potential operators at Langage and Sherford.

The Committee agreed to note the report.