Welsh city and towns receive £20m from Westminster’s Levelling Up fund
Four places in Wales will each be given £20 million over a 10-year period to help regenerate high streets and tackle anti-social behaviour.
Three Welsh towns along with Wrexham, which was recently granted city-status, have been awarded part of £1.1 billion levelling up investment fund being shared out to 55 “overlooked towns” across the UK.
Merthyr Tydfil, Cwmbran, Wrexham and Barry will each receive £20 million from the UK Government as part of a long-term investment plan for towns that have been ‘overlooked and taken for granted’.
The money will be provided directly by the UK Government to the relevant local authority. They will work with local partners including the Welsh Government to make sure the funding is used to best effect.
The Prime Minister said the new long-term vision for towns, backed by £1 billion of investment, was about putting “funding in the hands of local people” to improve their communities.
The £20 million endowment-style fund – to be spent over the course of a decade is to be used on local priorities such as reviving high streets, tackling anti-social behaviour, improving transport, boosting visitor numbers and growing the local economy.
News of the investment has been released on the eve of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.
Taken for granted
Prime Minister and Tory leader Rishi Sunak said: “Towns are the place most of us call home and where most of us go to work.
“But politicians have always taken towns for granted and focused on cities.
“The result is the half-empty high streets, rundown shopping centres and anti-social behaviour that undermine many towns’ prosperity and hold back people’s opportunity — and without a new approach, these problems will only get worse.
“That changes today. Our Long-Term Plan for Towns puts funding in the hands of local people themselves to invest in line with their priorities, over the long-term. That is how we level up.”
As part of the investment, the towns will set up a town board, bringing together community leaders, employers, local authorities and the local MP, to help deliver a plan for consultation.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) said the town boards would be able to use a suite of regeneration powers while deploying the new funding.
Officials suggested more private sector investment could be unlocked by auctioning empty high street shops, reforming licensing rules on shops and restaurants, and supporting more housing in urban centres.
They said research showed communities want to see more green spaces created and market days established to enhance town centres, with policing hotspots implemented to make public spaces safer.
Significant investment
Welsh Secretary David TC Davies said: “Merthyr Tydfil, Cwmbran, Wrexham and Barry are all fantastic places and will hugely benefit from this significant investment in their future.
“We are proud to be supporting people to take control of their local areas. Levelling up is at the centre of the UK Government’s ambitions and communities across Wales will be transformed over the coming years with the investment we are making in them.”
Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove added: “We know that in our towns the values of hard work and solidarity, common sense and common purpose, endeavour and quiet patriotism have endured across generations.
“But for too long, too many of our great British towns have been overlooked and undervalued.
“We are putting this right through our Long-Term Plan for Towns backed by over £1 billion of levelling up funding.
“This will empower communities in every part of the UK to take back control of their future, taking long term decisions in the interests of local people.
“It will mean more jobs, more opportunities and a brighter future for our towns and the people who live and work in them.”
DLUHC said towns had been allocated funding according to the Levelling Up Needs Index, taking into account metrics covering skills, pay, productivity and health, as well as the Index of Multiple Deprivation, to ensure funding goes directly to the towns which will benefit most.
Mr Gove’s department said the Government would work with local councils and the devolved administrations to determine how towns in Scotland and Wales will benefit from funding and powers under the proposals.
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The English Conservatives are handing out money like it was confetti in the hope those who were foolish to trust their false promises will vote for them again in next year’s general election you can smell the desperation. Perhaps those in Merthyr, Barry, Wrexham & Cwmbran can take a trip on the new M4 relief road never built by Boris Johnson. What about the billions in HS2 consequential never given to Wales because that fiscal black hole was made an England & Wales infrastructure build even though a 100 miles from our boarder robbing us of billions making the £20… Read more »
£20m for a select few is an insult but the people in these areas should take the money because it’s owed to them anyway and then some, but remember why these areas need it in the first place. Take what you’re entitled to, omit the gratitude and expect better for yourselves and the many other struggling Welsh communities who won’t be getting any such condescending treat.
Well said.! This is an unashamed pre-election bung by Rishy Sunak to those areas his government starved of investment over the past 14yrs in office. It’s like me mugging somebody, stealing their wallet, then wanting credit for offering to pay their bus fare home.
It is only some of our own cash paid in taxes to the UK. Where is the £9 Billion we should receive in compensation for our tax money spent on England’s HS2 vanity project? Where will the accountability be when this money is eventually received? Who are these community leaders? Why did they bypass the Welsh parliament and government ? Why involve Westminster MPs when they are elected by a Belarussian style election system ? £20 million is a fraction of what the EU would have given us and they would trust the Welsh parliamentary institution. We would be better… Read more »
Lets add up the hundreds of billions that have been stolen, lost, wasted, misappropriated, laundered, off-shored and generally taken from the public purse and handed out to the PPE thieves, Tory donors, Fossil Fuel Barons, Water companies and Brexit over the last thirteen years by @Slash, Burn, Plunder and Pillage UK under the ‘leadership’ of the Five Prime Ministers of the Apocalypse… Remember the useless and corrupt chancellorship of Rishi Sunak, the insanity of Truss, the stupidity and greed of Cameron, the nastiness of May, queen of the hostile environment and the debasement of honour, trust and truth by Fat… Read more »
One hand giveth, the other taketh away. The take in advance dwarfs the subsequent give, the amounts of which they are keen to publish while the take figures remain secret. The levelling up lie was always going to be exposed by the ongoing living fact that areas supposedly benefitting from it find they are not better off. It is money withheld first and chucked out later pending an election. Yet another sinister magic trick from the masters of deception.
Oh, it’s over a ten year period. That’s ten years into the future. Plenty of take time there to make sure most of that money does not arrive followed by a statement blaming these areas for not claiming it.
The Mad Hatter’s tea party is about to begin in a disused railway station in Manchester…
A variation on Mrs May’s hostile environment she perhaps didn’t plan for…
So they launch some fireworks and create a fanfare over £20m. I suppose it is better than nothing but compared to the lost EU investment and years of neglect it really is nothing.
Mere crumbs from the Tory table; they expect us to be grateful.
£20 million over 10 years, which just like HS2 will probably be reneged on after the election. As a comparison, the £5 billion we should be getting from HS2 is 250 times more than this. Bargain!