Change of rules sunk Blackpool boutique hotel funding bid says leader

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Blackpool’s bid for £8m of Levelling Up funding towards restoration of the town’s former main Post Office failed after government chiefs changed the criteria, council leader Coun Lynn Williams has said.

Blackpool had submitted bids for three separate schemes, but Coun Williams said it has since emerged no local authority area would be allowed funding for more than one scheme.

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Levelling Up Fund: Blackpool succeeds in £40m bid for new university, but hotel ...

Coun Williams was quizzed on the quality of its bid by Conservative councillor Bradley Mitchell at a meeting of the full council.

The plans for the Post Office to be converted to a boutique hotelThe plans for the Post Office to be converted to a boutique hotel
The plans for the Post Office to be converted to a boutique hotel

He said: “Despite my prior warnings following the council’s original Levelling Up bid that we needed to be more imaginative, two of the three elements of the first bid were recycled for this one and then unsurprisingly rejected.”

He claimed the public “don’t want another hotel” and asked: “When will we try something different at this location?”

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Blackpool was successful in receiving £40m towards developing a multiversity education campus in the town centre, but missed out on funding towards converting the Grade II listed former Post Office building on Abingdon Street into a boutique hotel.

A further bid for £15.4m for a town centre access scheme to improve traffic circulation, introduce bus priority measures and assist pedestrians and cyclists also failed.

But Coun Williams defended the quality of the bids, and speaking after the meeting revealed “the rules for Levelling Up Round 2 had been changed after the bids were submitted.”

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She added: “Now that we know how the Government made their decisions on Levelling Up Round 2, with no local authority being able to receive more than one successful bid, it is therefore quite clear the quality of the other two bids had nothing to do with their rejection.

“It is a shame the rules used for the final decisions were not clear in the bidding guidance, then we would have only spent time on the one project.

“A tremendous amount of work and resource is needed for this type of bidding competition, even when the rules are clear from the outset.

“It isn’t only the council that has had to expend resources futilely, our partner developer at the Post Office has been committing money to get the project ready for the bid. “