'Levelling Up' an illusion, says Bolton's Labour leader

An announcement on the outcome of the latest round of the 'Levelling Up' scheme revealed the bids for the town centre and De Havilland Way, each of them worth £20 million, were unsuccessful.

The announcement came just after Marks & Spencer said it was closing its store.

Blow as £40m bids to transform the town centre and busy junction rejected

The aim of the bid for the town centre was to add a high-end hotel to Le Mans Crescent and a conference complex to Albert Halls, and to make improvements to Market Place shopping centre and the area around Mawdsley Street.

The aim of the bid for De Havilland Way was to increase capacity and improve connectivity in an area of significant congestion between the Beehive Roundabout and Junction Six of the motorway.

READ MORE: Bolton misses out on £40m town centre and De Havilland Way bids.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) accepted other bids across the North West instead.

In his statement, Bolton Council leader Martyn Cox criticised a lack of 'feedback and guidance' from government, and called it a 'deep disappointment' and that the council would be making their feelings about the decision known at 'every level of Government'.

Bolton's Labour leader Nick Peel branded the idea of 'Levelling Up' in general an 'illusion'.

Cllr Peel said: "On the one hand, we have a government that has starved Bolton of much needed revenue funds over the years, so that day to day services suffer, and on the other, they dangle the prospect of one-off sums for particular projects, as though this somehow replaces the lost money.

"Even if we were successful, the one-off sums make no difference at all to struggling local services. Now the Tory Council has failed in its bid, what money we would have got to help with regeneration has disappeared. Levelling Up simply does not work. It is a Tory illusion."

Cllr Peel added: "This latest announcement is a massive blow to regeneration plans for Bolton town centre. When Bolton Labour left office, a £1 billion masterplan for Bolton town centre was ready for delivery. In partnership with the private sector, it planned to generate 1800 new town centre homes, 7400 new jobs and £412 million of economic activity. Bolton Tories’ actions since taking over the council have left that plan in tatters.

"We know that Bolton has been left behind by this Tory Government, but it’s now clear that they intend to do nothing to fix this, and the Tory Council in Bolton is incapable of making any difference."

Yasmin Qureshi, meanwhile, wrote to Levelling Up secretary Michael Gove to ask for clarification on the reason for the failure of the £40 million bids.

The MP for Bolton South East stressed to Mr Gove her constituency, the 38th most deprived in the country, is more in need of support than successful bidders such as those in the South of England.

The letter reads: "I supported a bid to redevelop the town centre, which falls in my constituency. In my view, this bid is a lifeline which my town cannot afford to miss out on. Our high street is dying a death, and a once-thriving commercial centre is a shadow of its former self. Our current model for planning economic growth locally and regionally clearly is not working for Bolton.

"I hope that you care deeply about regional inequalities, economic inequalities, and regional deprivation, and with this in mind, I ask that you come to Bolton so that I can show you the difficulties facing our local economy, and to show you just how much this funding was needed."

Mr Gove, however, shut down suggestions the successful bidders were chosen to shore up support in the South of England.

In an interview with Times Radio, he said: "I think more of the money is going to Labour-led local authorities than to Conservative-led local authorities and that’s because the money’s been allocated according to a set of objective criteria and on the basis of deliverability."