Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 15
15
Accepted
Paragraph: 92
The Government’s current approach to funding town centre regeneration—in line with its approach to allocating...
Recommendation
The Government’s current approach to funding town centre regeneration—in line with its approach to allocating funding to local government generally—is too complex, short-term, and fragmented. Ultimately this funding approach may hamper rather than facilitate the Government’s ambitions to build back better high streets, which require funding for long-term, comprehensive strategies for town centres in the round. The Government must move away from its current funding approach of multiple disparate grants for relatively small sums of money for which local authorities must compete, instead combining fewer grants of larger sums of money with a sustainable long-term funding settlement for local government and greater devolution of funding and powers. It should seriously consider not making the UK Shared Prosperity Fund a competitive fund.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government's response highlights its proactive measures to build capacity within local authorities for current local growth funds like the Towns Fund and Levelling Up Fund, enabling them to produce robust bids. It focuses on existing support for competitive funding without committing to change the complex, fragmented, or competitive nature of the funding approach recommended by the committee.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
92
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted
Government has been proactive in building capacity within Local Authorities within recent local growth funds. Both the Towns Fund and Levelling Up Fund contain dedicated resource for Local Authorities most in need to be able to produce the most robust bids. For the Towns Fund, capacity funding has enabled places to access technical expertise for business case development, run business and wider community engagement events, convene Town Deal Boards and develop comprehensive Town Investment Plans.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗