Stocksbridge and Goldthorpe get government cash to grow economies
They've both got Town Deals announced in the Budget yesterday
Three are hopes for a post-lockdown boom in two South Yorkshire towns getting more than £20 million each from the government for regeneration.
Goldthorpe and Stocksbridge were awarded Town Deals as part of the budget yesterday to help grow local economies across the UK and boost the recovery from the pandemic.
They're two of 45 new towns to get money under the scheme, which sees projects decided by a panel of local people who then bid for funding.
Goldthorpe is getting £23.1 million and Stocksbridge will be awarded £24.1 million.
Miriam Cates in the local MP for Stocksbridge - she says it's a huge step forward for the town:
"It's absolutely massive news for the area. Obviously it is for Stocksbridge itself but the benefits will go far beyond that because we're hopefully going to attract new productive jobs, there's going to be a post-16 hub, the first in the North of Sheffield. I think the benefits will go far and wide.
"People are proud of living in Stocksbridge - they don't want to leave. But there are not enough opportunities in the area to then get involved in those kind of productive growing jobs. So if we can attract those kind of businesses and investment to the area and upskill our own workforce so that they're able to work in those businesses then hopefully we can grow our own local economy."
The government says the Town Deals are key parts of its promise to 'level up' the country.
But some see it as a way of the Coservatives trying to cling on to some of the Northern constituencies it won for the first time in the 2019 election.
Miriam tells us Stocksbridge has been left behind for too long:
"It was built on the steel industry - there used to be 11,000 employees at the plant, there are now 800 or 900. So there's been a big contraction. As those industries have declined, so have the other aspects of the town's life. And no government in recent decades has found an answer to that.
"Building back better is not about just having more of the same that we had before. It's actually about very much changing the way that our economy is balanced in recognition of the fact that for decades it's been far too focussed in London and the South East and the people who actually built the prosperity of this country in the North haven't got a fair share of the pie."