Towns Fund

(asked on 30th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, which organisations have received funding from the Town Deals Fund; how much funding they received; and what the criteria was for its allocation, in each year since its creation.


Answered by
Luke Hall Portrait
Luke Hall
Minister of State (Education)
This question was answered on 3rd December 2020

The £3.6 billion Towns Fund includes £1 billion for the Future High Streets Fund, as well as funding for 101 places that have been selected to develop proposals for Town Deals.

In 2019, we paid all places shortlisted for the Future High Streets Fund grants of up to £150,000 revenue funding to develop full business cases. In December 2019 we paid out £16.4 million in capacity funding to local authorities from the initial 100 towns selected for Town Deals to establish Town Deal Boards and develop their proposals. In both cases the money was paid to the lead local authority.

In May 2020, following a competitive tender and pre-market engagement exercises, we appointed an Arup-led consortium to provide commercial support to all 101 towns selected for Town Deals to help develop their plans and proposals to bid into the fund. Further details about the contract can be found at: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/18a3b1d6-1624-42c4-a0fb-70311c335584.

In September 2020, we paid £81.5 million in accelerated funding to the lead local authorities for the 101 towns selected for Town Deals. Each town received between £500,000 and £1 million to help them respond to the immediate challenges of Covid-19.

On 27 October 2020, Government announced the first seven places in England set to benefit from up to £178.7 million in new Town Deals: Barrow-in-Furness, Blackpool, Darlington, Norwich, Peterborough, Torquay and Warrington. Work has begun to confirm final funding for these places. Further announcements on more Town Deals will be made in due course.

Full details of these payments are on gov.uk.

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