A SPECIAL council meeting has been called to discuss what is being done to help lift Blaenau Gwent off the bottom of a league table ranking economic competitiveness in the UK.

Councillors have said they want to see “the nitty gritty” of plans being developed after the region was ranked as the least competitive locality in Britain by the UK Competitiveness Index.

The index ranks regions based on factors such as economic activity, business start-up rates, the proportion of knowledge-based businesses and the proportion of the working age population with an NVQ Level 4 or above

Since being ranked bottom of the table, the council has developed a framework with business professionals from the Blaenau Gwent Enterprise Board to support businesses in starting and growing.

But at a meeting of the council’s regeneration scrutiny committee on Monday, councillors raised concern the framework does not provide enough details.

“We are letting down the people of Blaenau Gwent with the position we are in,” Cllr John Morgan said.

“We have got to look at generating business and getting things moving.

“We are bottom of the table so the only way is up, but I am concerned that all we are seeing is a framework. We should be seeing a plan.”

Ellie Fry, head of regeneration and development at the council, said businesses had agreed to the framework as it can be adapted, whereas a plan quickly becomes out of date.

The council says improving the region’s competitiveness includes several different areas – such as improving the rate of business start-ups – which each have their own strategies.

Cllr Mark Holland said a framework needed to be established before plans could be developed.

But Cllr Phil Edwards said members needed to know “what the nitty gritty is”, and called for a special meeting to discuss the issue in more depth, which was agreed by the committee.

While Blaenau Gwent is ranked 379th, several other Welsh regions are also towards the bottom of the table, with Caerphilly ranked 374 and Merthyr Tydfil at 376.

Torfaen, Newport and Monmouthshire have all gone up the table and are ranked at 352, 228 and 162 respectively, while Cardiff is the best performing Welsh region at 128 in the table.