Only seven “levelling up” projects have been built five years after Boris Johnson’s flagship programme was launched, The i Paper can reveal.
After coming to power in 2019, the former Conservative Prime Minister promised the levelling up agenda would reduce inequalities between regions of the UK that have been widening for decades.
A £4.8bn fund was launched in 2020 with councils invited to submit bids across three rounds of funding for projects such as community centres, swimming pools and transport infrastructure.
But a report published by the Labour Government last week found less than 2 per cent of the 380 projects awarded funding in Rounds 1 and 2 have completed construction so far.
Experts said pressure to launch the Levelling Up Fund “rapidly”, changes to the application criteria mid-way through the selection process, and record-breaking inflation in the construction sector has hampered progress.
Labour says it is “drawing a line under previous failed approaches” and its own policies, including a £1.5bn Plan for Neighbourhoods, will deliver “meaningful improvement to peoples’ lives” instead.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner says investment of £20m in 75 towns – including a number affected by rioting last summer – will go towards projects that improve “community cohesion”.
Bradford Leisure Centre delayed by more than 10 years
The proposed leisure centre at Squire Lane in Bradford (Image: Bradford Council)A £10m leisure centre was first proposed at Squire Lane in Bradford back in 2014.
More than a decade later, it still has not been built, despite being awarded £20m in Round 1 of the Levelling Up Fund in 2020.
The facility would include a swimming pool, gym and dance studios in one of the most deprived cities in the North, but has been hit by repeated delays.
Levelling Up Fund projects were supposed to be built within three years but Bradford Council only just submitted a planning application for the centre in July this year.
Council leaders have expressed concerns about spiralling costs as the authority’s debts are expected to hit £1bn by 2030.
Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw said: “Obviously, there’s still some way to go before we get to a final decision.
“We’re pleased to have retained the £20 million grant funding for this pool.
“Going through this next stage of development will start to more accurately assess the ongoing running costs of a new facility, which we need to have before any final decision can be made on construction.”
Tory government ‘wanted money out the door’
However, critics believe Labour has been too slow to set out its alternative to levelling up and is at risk of paying the price for public disillusionment as much as the Tories.
“Labour aren’t going to win against Reform if they don’t show people in the physical environment what better looks like,” said Tim Heatley, co-founder of Capital & Centric, a “social impact” development company.
“Regeneration is one of the biggest opportunities – you can see it, you can feel it.
“At the moment, there isn’t really anything viable in terms of gap funding – other than with Homes England.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of combined authority mayors, they still don’t know what they are going to get.”
Property developer Tim Heatley (Photo: BBC/Minnow Films/Nick Mattingly)Heatley’s company delivered the Goods Yard in Stoke-on-Trent, one of the few Levelling Up Fund projects to have completed construction.
The former industrial site has been transformed into 174 apartments as well as workspaces, restaurants and bars next to the city’s railway station.
The total cost of the scheme was around £60m of which £16m came from the Levelling Up Fund.
Heatley said 70 apartments have already been reserved since the scheme officially launched in June and all 20,000 square feet of workspace is fully let.
But he isn’t surprised that other L:evelling Up projects haven’t yet been delivered because he believes their plans were flawed to begin with.
“The government were saying ‘we want the money out the door’ and councils felt that they had to put a bid in for something, they came up with all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas,” he said.
“Some of these councils that were awarded money don’t know what they are building – is it a food hall? Is it a community space?
“They’re saying ‘we don’t know but we have the money so we’re going to build something’.
“That’s not great.”
‘Everything takes three years – they need to get on with it’
The Government’s report revealed that 95 per cent of Levelling Up Fund projects have been “delayed, relative to the timeline envisaged”.
Heatley believes Labour should consider whether some of these projects should now be scrapped and the money put to better use.
“At the moment they [Labour] are using what little money they’ve got and spreading it very thinly,” he added.
“It isn’t going to move the dial.
“They should be taking money back from those projects that aren’t going to deliver and refocus on stuff that can be.
“Everything takes three years, to have something to shout about they need to get on with it now.”
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner (left) during a visit to a new housing development near Didcot, Oxfordshire, in May (Photo: Jordan Pettit/PA)Jack Shaw, Policy Fellow at the University of Manchester’s Productivity Institute, said the infrastructure the Conservatives promised under levelling up “simply hasn’t materialised.”
“People expected to see visible improvements in their neighbourhoods, and those promises remain unfulfilled,” he added.
“But that failure also reflects a broader intertia of the state. No government will be able to deliver its priorities without serious reform of the Civil Service and how Whitehall works with mayors, councils and communities.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “For too long communities have been left behind and starved of investment, and that is why we are taking decisive action to deliver meaningful improvement to people’s lives through our Plan for Change. This government inherited numerous unfunded levelling up projects, which we have taken action to fund.
“The Government is drawing a line under previous failed approaches and investing in up to 350 areas across the country, including £20m each for 75 towns through the Plan for Neighbourhoods, so we can regenerate local services and high streets and boost growth.
“We will also continue to work with local authorities to deliver benefits to local people from previously committed funds.”
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