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Leeds ranked highly for inward investment

Leeds have been ranked among the UK’s best locations for inward investment, according to research published on 29 October 2015

Grant Thornton’s Business Location Index evaluates data from 324 local authorities in England and ranks cities as potential centres for investment by overseas owned businesses based on economic, social and environmental criterion.

The report has shown that Leeds is outperforming many other English cities, ranked at the top of the tables for quality and value. Yorkshire and the Humber along with the East Midlands are the areas with the greatest number of high quality low cost locations.

The Business Location Index (BLI) has been created by Grant Thornton to help redress the imbalance of inward investment activity across England by helping local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) and local authorities better understand and communicate their strengths and assets as business locations.

Leeds was the highest scoring northern city for overall quality of business location, a ranking that takes into account transport, infrastructure, skills, premises and economic performance factors. Outside London, only Cambridge and Birmingham were evaluated higher in the first BLI rankings.

Andy Wood, practice leader for the Leeds office of Grant Thornton, said: “Leeds and Sheffield have come out of this report really well on different measures, and that’s great for the future growth of the Yorkshire economy.

“Further evidence that Leeds is a really smart choice for UK expansion is obviously welcome, and what we can take away from the report is that both Leeds and Sheffield are among the best places for inward investment projects outside the capital”