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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 5 July 2021 to Question 24984 on the Towns Fund and the statement in that Answer his Department has a robust monitoring and evaluation strategy to spot issues early and work with towns to address them, whether his Department has cancelled plans to fund any projects through the Towns Fund as a result of issues identified through that monitoring and evaluation.

Town Investment Plans were subject to a robust assessment process and offers of Town Deals reflected both the overall quality of the plans, and that of the individual projects within. Projects that did not fit with the intervention framework or that were judged to be unviable were not approved for funding.

Further detailed assurance must be carried out for each project before funding is released. Once funding is released and projects move into the delivery phase, our monitoring and evaluation activities will identify any issues, and appropriate action will be taken.