Stalybridge has missed out on Levelling Up funding for the second time as Tameside leaders slam the bidding process as an ‘expensive postcode lottery’ and a ‘joke’.
Tameside council had hoped to claim nearly £36m for two projects to ‘level up’ the towns of Stalybridge and Denton from the total £4.8 billion Levelling Up fund.
The council had previously been awarded nearly £20m from the first round of the fund for works in Ashton-under-Lyne, but a proposal to improve Stalybridge was not successful.
READ MORE: "It’s a stitch up": Anger and disappointment as towns miss out on £40m in 'Levelling Up' funding
Only three boroughs in Greater Manchester won funding as part of the second round, with projects in Oldham, Trafford and Wigan getting government backing.
Council leader Ged Cooney said: “The news that Stalybridge and Denton have been unable to access a share of the £2.1bn government levelling up money comes as no surprise. It’s a very expensive postcode lottery with no transparency.
“Mr Gove said the new funding ‘will create jobs, drive economic growth, and help to restore local pride’, having stripped the money out of our communities, which has decimated vital local services like childcare, buses and social care.
“As leader of Tameside council, I remain committed to supporting the residents of Stalybridge and Denton despite this setback by this government and we will continue to bid for funds to restore our town centres despite this government’s fiscal incompetence, which has made us all poorer.”
Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish constituency described the latest funding announcement as the ‘final nail in the coffin of the government’s levelling-up agenda’.
“In 2019, local people were promised investment which would transform neglected communities – particularly in the north of England,” he said.
“Since then, overlooked areas have had to scrap for exclusive pots of money in nothing more than a trumped-up smokescreen to hide this government’s fundamental failure to improve regional inequalities.
“The whole thing is a joke, and I’m beyond angry that yet again local people have been let down.”
Tameside had applied for a total of £20m for Stalybridge town centre, which would have consisted of the provision of more car parking on brownfield land, and remediating brownfield sites for future residential development – to the tune of £9.2m.
A further £8m would have been spent on public realm improvements, including improved pedestrian and cycle routes and access to public transport.
Two of Stalybridge’s most prominent buildings, the Civic Hall and Astley Cheetham, would have also benefited with £1.5m and £1.3m being spent on repairs works.
In Denton, the £15.5m proposals centered around providing public realm improvements and better walking and cycling routes across the town centre, which would have cost £12.5m.
Of the remaining pot, £2m would have been spent on improvements to Festival Hall to allow relocation of further council services into the town centre, creating a ‘neighbourhood hub’, with £1m towards improving Denton Town Hall.
However Conservative Stalybridge South councillor Liam Billington criticised the quality of the bids submitted to the fund, saying that there was a ‘lack of vision and poor management’.
“The failure of the council’s Levelling Up bids comes as no surprise,” he said. “The council showed the bids to councillors at a meeting of full council back in July – a week before the submission deadline.
“We warned then that the bids were weak with no ambition to deliver on the people’s priorities such as the Market Hall. Instead the council chose to focus half of the bid on creating more cycle lanes across Stalybridge and Denton.”
Coun David Sweeton, executive member for business and employment, said the result was ‘disappointing’ but that the second round of bids had been ‘very over-subscribed’, and he praised the work of council officers on the projects.
“There was speculation that this was going to be the one for Stalybridge,” he added. “Ultimately we weren’t successful.
“I’m personally disappointed, as are we as an authority, we believed we had two strong bids worth of LUF backing.
“I want to assure the residents of Tameside we will continue to work on an exciting pipeline of projects and opportunities with both external partners and developers to ensure the delivery of regeneration schemes around the whole of the borough.
“Specifically Stalybridge, I made sure we had a Plan B. The LUF would have been extremely useful but is it a deal-breaker to get on with a couple of schemes? Absolutely not and we’re bringing those forward.
“People are knocking on our door now, we’ve got the developers and we’ve got the partners. It will not stop some key projects from coming forward.”
He said the improvements the fund would have paid for in Denton would not be as quick to bring about without external funding, but they were committed to delivering them in the longer term.
“Denton has got a whole host of different workability problems and footflow issues, things that are not there in Stalybridge,” Coun Sweeton added. “But we know what they are and we need to crack on and resolve those issues.”
Announcing the second round of successful bids, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove said: “We are firing the starting gun on more than a hundred transformational projects in every corner of the UK that will revitalise communities that have historically been overlooked but are bursting with potential.
“This new funding will create jobs, drive economic growth, and help to restore local pride. We are delivering on the people’s priorities, levelling up across the UK to ensure that no matter where you are from, you can go as far as your talents will take you.”
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