Around £20M worth of funding aimed at transform Bolton town centre is still likely to be a reality, town hall leaders say.

Bolton was awarded the £20M last autumn for projects including redeveloping the town hall and creating a new hotel on Le Mans Crescent as part of the government’s “levelling up” agenda.

This was left without being signed off before the election was called, but council leader Nick Peel has said he is “confident” the next government will still honour this commitment.

Cllr Peel said: “I’ve clarified that this will cover levelling up.”

He added: “This is really part of a broader policy that will look at levelling up plans and will end the bidding policy that councils previously had to go through and which ended up with millions spent on failed bids.”

The £20M is aimed at funding a range of projectsThe £20M is aimed at funding a range of projects (Image: Bolton Council)

Under the previous system councils all across the country were encouraged to bid against each other for funding from the government to fund various projects.

Bids had to be sponsored by MPs and in Bolton’s case the borough succeeded in winning funding for the new Institute of Medical Sciences on the grounds of Royal Bolton Hospital.

But it failed in a bid for an improved traffic light system around De Havilland Way and had at first failed in the bid for the £20M to redevelop Bolton town centre.

This was dramatically reversed when the government announced in November last year that it had decided it would award the £20M as part of the third round of levelling up funds.  

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As of the start of June, by which time the general election had been called, Bolton was still waiting for ministerial sign off for the fund.

But Cllr Peel says that a Labour Party “Power and Partnerships” policy document which says that it would “make good on the governments stalled investment projects.”

He says that he has since sought clarity from Andy Burnham’s office that this will mean current levelling up projects are still funded.

But Cllr Peel said he understood that future levelling up plans would be less focused on building projects and more on people focused policies like employment levels.