The first round of the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) sees £450 million invested in businesses across Britain.

The RGF is a £1.4bn fund which is designed to encourage enterprise, growth and jobs in the private sector and support areas and communities that are dependent on the public sector.

The Government expects over 27,000 jobs to be directly created and safeguarded, with close to a further 100,000 jobs in associated supply chains and local economies.

The second round of the fund opens to bids today. This round will aim to allocate the remainder of nearly £1 billion.

The successful bids include the development of a former eye hospital in Manchester into a biomedical centre of excellence; the construction of a manufacturing plant on Teesside to develop resins for food and drink packaging; development of a cutting edge factory & R&D laboratory for Holroyd Precision Ltd in Rochdale, and a proposal from General Motors to build the next-generation Vivaro van in Luton.

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Announcing the successful bids, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: "I was bowled over by the quality of the bids. This money will now help create and safeguard jobs in some of the communities worst hit by the economic downturn.

"Today is a step towards rebalancing our economy away from an unhealthy over-reliance on a small number of industries and a few areas. We need to spread opportunity across the whole country, drawing on our many talents."

Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "Supporting job creation in the regions is vital if we are to drive growth in our local communities.

"We have received a large number of ambitious and highly competitive bids to this first round of the Regional Growth Fund, which will help a number of businesses across the country to expand and create thousands of new jobs."

(CD/GK)