Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) is a joint programme between the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, The Treasury and the Department for Trade and Industry. It is a neighbourhood renewal programme that aims to increase entrepreneurial activity in the local population; support the growth and reduce the failure rate of locally-owned businesses; and attract appropriate inward investment and franchising - making use of local labour resources.

The scheme rewarded innovative ideas and plans to bring entreprenurial activity and employment opportunities to deprived wards. Brighton & Hove has two wards in the 10% most deprived in the country.

Local Government Minister Phil Woolas announced that the first round of the programme will award a share of almost £126 million to local authorities for the period 2006/07 to 2008/09:

Local authorities were invited to submit proposals setting out how LEGI funding would be used to stimulate enterprise and transform their most deprived areas. A national advisory panel, which included two senior private sector representatives, recommended that funding be awarded to these 10 bids from 15 local authorities.

Only Croydon (£20.3 million) and Hastings (£3.6 million) received funding in the south east. But the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) insisted that more deserving authorities had missed out because the money went to the cleverest bids not neccesarily the neediest wards.

IPPR suggests that those councils that had either the in-house expertise or the spare cash to commission it were rewarded even though they may not represent the most deprived areas where assistance is desperately needed.

The ODPM said that the winners included six authorities with the lowest rate of business start up in England and disappointed bidders could reapply in summer. Brighton & Hove submitted a bid for LEGI funding in December but it was withdrawn in January to allow for further development and it is expected to be resubmitted in the next financial year.