Worcester Levelling-up bid in jeopardy

Worcester's bid for Levelling Up funds is “potentially in jeopardy”, councillors have heard.

Funding worth £5 million was announced by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government in March as part of the Spring Budget.

The city council submitted its plan to spend the money – including proposals for a new Battle of Worcester sculpture, education centres in city museums and an accessible lift for the Swan Theatre – in the run-up to the general election.

But it hasn’t heard anything since, although with a change of government there are always going to be other priorities.

It’s also worth noting that Keir Starmer’s Labour government has distanced itself from the phrase ‘Levelling Up’, already dropping the words from the name of the department responsible for housing and communities.

Speaking at Tuesday’s (July 30) Policy and Resources committee meeting, Cllr Elena Round said the Levelling Up fund was “potentially in jeopardy”.

Managing director David Blake said: “We don’t know whether it’s in jeopardy or not at the moment.

“Every time I get a letter from the deputy prime minister I think that’s the letter that confirms, or whatever. Today’s letter was about planning, so there was a sigh of relief.

“In all seriousness, we have to wait and see. We have raised this with the department and it is on the list of things they have promised to come back to.

“We simply do not know whether we are going to get the £5 million.”

Council leader Lynn Denham said the council’s proposals for how it would spend the £5m “went and sat on someone’s desk in Whitehall” at some point during the General Election.

“So we are awaiting the person who has come in and found it at a desk, as are other areas, in order to get the feedback on that,” she said.

“Our MP is aware of that and the importance to Worcester of getting the funding,” Cllr Denham added.

The funding for the Scala and other city centre projects, which comes from the Future High Streets Fund is separate.

Mr Blake said those funds are already sitting in the council’s bank account.

“I know nationally a number of councils have struggled to spend the money they’ve been allocated but we’re not in that camp,” he said.

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