Chancellor George Osborne gives green light for The Waterfront in Brierley Hill to become an Enterprise Zone in today's Budget

Mr Wood says he’s been lobbying the Chancellor for the last 12 months to give the go-ahead for the area to become a designated Enterprise Zone to help revive its fortunes and create new jobs.

The Conservative MP said: “ This is projected to create more than 4,000 new jobs.

“This is a campaign I have been working on since George Osborne visited Wordsley to campaign for me last April. He asked which one thing that the Treasury could do would make the biggest difference to the constituency if I was elected.

“Since then, I have raised it at various points in the House of Commons and with Ministers. Over the past couple of weeks, I have had further meetings with the Chancellor and with other Ministers to push for this to be in the Budget.

“This new Enterprise Zone will obviously link in well with the Metro extension announced before Christmas, and with the new HE-level music centre of excellence that has been given the go ahead.

“It's not my birthday until tomorrow, but this is the best present the chancellor could possibly have given me. It will mean thousands of jobs for local families, attract further investment to our area and generate the prosperity and growth that out community needs.”

Councillor Patrick Harley, leader of Dudley Conservatives, said it was thanks to “the involvement of Mike Wood, the strategic director of Place and the Black Country LEP” that the bid was successful after an earlier failed attempt at securing an Enterprise Zone at The Waterfront.

The Waterfront currently has 260,000 sq ft of office accommodation which is vacant.

Mr Wood added: “If the vacant accommodation was fully occupied then this would create over 4,500 new jobs. The additional resources an Enterprise Zone will bring will create an additional one million sq ft of office space within the area. If fully occupied there is the possibility of a further 6,000 new jobs."