Chance for Leeds digital projects to tap into millions of pounds of funding

As previously reported by the Yorkshire Evening Post, Leeds City Council was handed a £3.7m grant from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport earlier this year to help with the development of a new Tech Hub.

But the council is now considering using that cash to fund a number of different digital projects rather than ploughing it all into a single bricks-and-mortar scheme.

If the proposal gets the green light, bids would be sought for grants ranging from £2m to around £400,000.

The council’s executive board should decide at a meeting on Wednesday whether to press ahead with plans for the Leeds Tech Hub Fund.

A council report compiled for the board’s members says: “The original Government analysis, that we need a single building to act as the catalyst and drive growth, does not reflect what either the market is telling us or what individual companies and entrepreneurs are saying.

“The strength of the Leeds economy is often reflected through its diversity.

“In the case of the proposed Tech Hub, the solution that is emerging is one which seeks to support a range of projects which support different sub-sectors and geographic clusters.”

The YEP recently launched its Digital City platform in partnership with Sky Betting & Gaming.

The platform is designed to highlight the giant strides being made by a sector that boasts around 3,000 organisations in Leeds.