Projects worth £19bn offered to global investors

Mayor Richard Parker has said now "is the time to invest in the West Midlands"

A new prospectus outlining more than £19bn of investment opportunities in the West Midlands has been launched.

The combined authority said Tuesday's Regional Investment Summit in Birmingham would give the region and others the chance to showcase their potential to global investors.

The prospectus features projects including the £4bn Sports Quarter with its new Birmingham City FC stadium, the Sandwell to Dudley Metro Corridor and Investment Zone sites in Coventry & Warwickshire, Wolverhampton and Birmingham.

Mayor Richard Parker, who will co-host the summit, said the region was "brimming with talent", yet there was "so much more potential waiting to be released".

He added the prospectus showed "the sheer scale" of what was happening, offering investors "the opportunity to be at the forefront of driving a new era of growth, good jobs and affordable homes".

Parker, who will co-host with Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle, said: "We have a proud history of innovation and industry but now is the time to go further and faster than ever before."

Birmingham schemes in the prospectus include the city's £4bn Knowledge Quarter, the HS2 station at Curzon Street, the £1.9bn Smithfield development and a creative industries hub in Digbeth.

A new Mayoral Development Corporation would give investors speed and certainty, "helping to deliver major schemes" quicker by bringing together planning powers, land, funding and delivery under one roof, the combined authority said.

It added the prospectus built on the mayor's Growth Plan, a blueprint for how the region would increase its economy by £17bn over the next decade, creating 100,000 new jobs and 120,000 new homes.