Business Secretary Vince Cable will today announce whether the West will get new regeneration bodies to replace the South West Regional Development Agency.

But Mr Cable has attracted fierce criticism as it is unlikely the first wave of 'local entreprise partnerships' - a loose coalition of councils and business - will be given any start-up capital to tap into the Government's £1.4 billion regional growth fund.

Instead, West businesses and authorities may have to stump up the cash themselves to support the new bodies.

Today, Mr Cable, who defends the plans, along with Eric Pickles, the Local Government Minister, will present the White Paper on sub-regional economic growth which will set out plans to support the regions.

They will also announce the first wave of successful bids out of the 57 LEPs proposals submitted.

To date, the business community has been sceptical about the effectiveness of LEPs, with the organisations that will probably make up the network being dominated by councils rather than companies.

The news comes as Bristol University researchers urge the Government to dedicate itself to achieving its stated aims, saying that fears in Whitehall of losing control could see projects in the regions derailed.

Despite the extension of the fund, Whitehall departments struggling with financial deficits are likely to retreat from supporting such initiatives and scupper any longer-term opportunities that genuine decentralisation might afford.

"The LEPs have got off to a ropey start," said Richard Lambert, director-general of the CBI last week. "It has been a bit of a shambles."

But the CBI played down concerns that lack of funding would prevent money being directed to the most vulnerable regions.

Some raised concerns that the absence of start-up funding would make it very hard for deprived areas of the country to set up LEPs.

Adrian Bailey, chairman of the Business Select Committee, said: "The most disadvantaged regions are those with the most public sector employment – and they often lack the business capacity to submit funding bids to the regional development fun.

"The fact that there appears to be no funding in central Government for it means there is no funding system to develop the expertise and develop the bids."

But Mr Cable said the first round of submissions had been "thoughtful, profession and well thought through".

Tessa Coombes, director of policy and strategy at GWE Business West, said: "A great deal of hope is being attached to the formation of these LEPs but little or no funding will be available from central Government to set them up.

"If we are serious about economic growth and private sector jobs growth, then these new public/private partnerships have a massive agenda to address in challenging times.

GWE Business West is extremely well placed to support this new venture, with a 20-year track record of establishing more than 30 joint ventures with our local councils.

"We bring to the table business representation from a membership of more than 2,000 key businesses in the area and resources to support the LEPs' ability to deliver.

"However, we do need to see real commitment from our local councils to engaging properly with and fully involving us as a local business community as well as a real commitment to the LEP being a true partnership of public and private sectors."

A spokesman for Somerset Chamber of Commerce said: "Here in Somerset we have worked hard to develop a proposal that, while not suiting every business, would provide a stimulus to the economies of Somerset and Devon that share more economic similarities and infrastructure challenges than you may first recognise. We hope that this becomes a reality."