North and East Ayrshire bag levelling up funding but South Ayrshire misses out
East and North Ayrshire share £44m in Levelling Up Funding. But old concerns for cancelling Ayr Leisure Centre may reignite after South Ayrshire bid fails.
North and East Ayrshire are two of 111 areas to be granted Levelling up Funding from the UK Government, but South Ayrshire’s bid has been rejected.
Both successful recipients of the funding will see up to £44m in investments.
East Ayrshire
Kilmarnock’s ‘cultural quarters’ will receive a boost of £20m which will see the creation of an ‘enhanced cultural park sited immediately to the east of Kilmarnock’s town centre.
The East Ayrshire authority had initially hoped for further funding to carry out vital improvements to the Bellfield interchange, but it wasn’t granted.
The SNP led administration had the option of submitting a larger scale bid, but opted to submit two separate smaller bids for the interchange and the cultural quarters with the latter being the successful.
What will the funding change?
The proposed works by East Ayrshire Council will include the upgrade of the Palace Theatre and Grand Hall to expand it’s capacity for visitors at large scale events.
It will also include the creation of a new parkland setting to create an important amenity for the theatre.
Council Leader, Douglas Reid previously said: “This funding will lead to significant investment in the area’s cultural and transport infrastructure, which would in turn bring significant economic, social and environmental benefits to East Ayrshire.”
North Ayrshire
North Ayrshire will receive the remaining £24m to improve the B714 in the region north of the Sharphill roundabout and connect it to the A737 Dalry bypass.
Bosses say this will ‘provide greater and faster access to the job opportunities in Glasgow and the Central Belt, encourage investment in the area through improved connectivity which will then lead to increased visitor numbers’.
South Ayrshire
South Ayrshire Council’s single Levelling up bid that requested £20m was rejected.
The previous SNP administration had sought the money as part of a new Ayr Leisure Centre.
However, when Martin Dowey’s Tory administration took over last May he made it a priority to cancel plans to the build the leisure centre.
His council did continue the bid for Levelling Up Funding despite the cancellation of the lesirue centre project and added concerns that it would consequentially affect the success of receiving the funding.
Councillor Martin Dowey previously said the bid was not specifically tied to the project and the bid was for improving leisure facilities in South Ayrshire.
The Conservative leader told West FM he wanted to divert funds that were intended for the new Ayr Leisure Centre and put them into renovating the Citadel.
Now that the bid has been rejected, it puts doubts over the funding for both the refurbishment of the Citadel Leisure Centre and the town centre regeneration.
The Three Ayrshire Councils have been contacted for comment.