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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the Town Deal for Southport.

Throughout the development of the Southport Town Deal my officials have worked closely with Southport and followed robust processes to ensure proposals are ambitious and well-considered, and that projects can ultimately be delivered. This includes:

• Full assessment of all Town Investment Plans considering the overall strategy for the town, the individual projects proposed and local stakeholder engagement. In-principle commitment of funding was only provided once Southport had passed this assessment and confirmed their final list of projects.
• Full business case development for each project. Funding is not paid out to places until they have developed those business cases and submitted summary documentation for review. This includes information about the value for money of a project, expected outputs and outcomes, and its deliverability.
• For particularly large or novel projects like Southport’s Marine Lake Events Centre, Towns are required to submit a copy of the full business case for additional scrutiny by the relevant policy experts across government.
• Annual performance review and a separate assurance process which determine annual payments.