Stalybridge is to get a surprise £20m in regeneration funding – eight weeks after a ‘levelling up’ bid for the town was rejected by the government to the fury of local leaders.
In January Tameside council leader Ged Cooney had accused the Levelling Up Fund (LUF) as being an ‘expensive postcode lottery with no transparency’ following the news that Stalybridge had missed out on cash for a second time.
But in the Spring Budget, announced yesterday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities has granted a further £220m of funding to support 16 shortlisted regeneration project bids.
This includes Stalybridge – which has been awarded £19.9m to enable regeneration plans in the town centre, the same amount as the council had bid for in the second round of the LUF.
The authority says the plans include repair work to the Civic Hall to support its reuse and enhancement including housing the Astley Cheetham Art Gallery and library.
The bid also put forward proposals to unlock brownfield and other sites for future residential and commercial development to help the facilitation of further private sector investment, and improvements to the public realm, pedestrian and cycling routes and access to public transport.
In a letter to Coun Cooney dated the same day as the budget announcement (March 15), Secretary of State for Levelling Up Michael Gove said that he understood the ‘disappointment you will have felt’ when the LUF bid for Stalybridge was unsuccessful due to the ‘competitive nature’ of the round.
But he said as a result of ‘re-focusing departmental budgets, we are now able to fund further capital regeneration projects which will support more regeneration projects across the country’.
“I appreciate the hard work that went into the original application and am very keen, as I am sure you are, to get delivery and spend underway quickly,” he wrote.
In response to the announcement, Coun Cooney said: “This is fantastic news for Stalybridge, we felt we had a strong bid around our plans and we were disappointed when it was unsuccessful in round two of the Levelling Up fund, and so this is welcome news for Tameside.
“The monies will allow us to build on the existing work underway in Stalybridge, supporting the GM Mayor’s Town Centre Challenge and complementing the emerging work in relation to the Stalybridge High Street Heritage Action Zone including the projects on the Heritage Walk, Civic Hall and public realm improvements.”
He added: “This work will also be closely linked with the improvements to our public and green spaces and supporting cultural activities following the successful £2m proposal to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund for borough wide projects.”
“We remain committed as always to improving all our town centres and making them great places for everyone to live, work and visit and we will continue to seek opportunities to bring further investment into the borough and bid for funding pots where they become available.”
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