Fleetwood MP hits out after £22m bid to regenerate town rejected by Government

Ms Smith tackled Secretary of State for Local Government, Robert Jenrick MP over the Conservative’s failure to award any money to the town from a special High Street Fund set up to help deprived areas regenerate.

Fleetwood’s bid for £22 million was submitted by Wyre Council back in July 2020.

The Labour MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood believes Fleetwood may have lost out because Fleetwood is in a Labour constituency or because Wyre's bid was not as good as it could have been,

She said: “I’m astonished that a town like Fleetwood lost out,

"Lord Street was a good example of a high street that could have benefited from this fund.

“There are wards in Fleetwood that are some of the most deprived in the country.

"At least 20 per cent of children live in poverty. More than a third of working age people have no qualifications and the town has the lowest life expectancy of 65 to 77 as shown on the index of multiple deprivation 2019.

"High rates of smoking cause high rates of lung disease and cancer, drug deaths, alcohol-related harm, significant levels of mental health issues and a high suicide rate all contribute towards people in Fleetwood living shorter lives.

"Just what does Fleetwood need to do to be eligible for funding?”

Last year the government announced it would invest up to £830 million to help areas recover from the pandemic and to help transform underused town centres into vibrant places to live, work and shop.

The Government said the ‘ambitious plans will help protect and create thousands of jobs as part of the levelling up agenda.’

Wyre Council submitted a bid for £22 million but on Boxing Day the Government confirmed that the council had been unsuccessful in attracting funding.

The outcome was also surprising because Conservative-led Wyre Council has enjoyed a good track record for successful large-scale funding bids in recent years, including grants for Fleetwood applications such as the Memorial Park and Mount restoration projects , and the recent Project Neptune fish park scheme.

The council has yet to comment on the outcome.

On a video link from the constituency, Ms Smith, who backed the Wyre Council bid, demanded to know why Fleetwood had not been selected.

She said: “In November, the Public Accounts Committee published a damning report on the Towns Fund, stating that ‘the selection process was not impartial’ and was almost certainly subject to political interference from Ministers,” Ms Smith stated.

“Wyre Council’s strong bid for Future High Streets funding for Fleetwood, which I supported, was rejected last month. Was the selection process, that saw Fleetwood’s town centre miss out, not impartial also?”

The Minister’s response was to slam Conservative led Wyre Council for not having a good enough bid.

“With respect to the High Streets Fund, I can assure her this was 100% competitive,” said Mr Jenrick.

“Process ministers had no say in choosing the particular places, and if fault lies anywhere I'm afraid it lies with her local council, because despite us giving hundreds of thousands of pounds to them to produce plans, and despite no doubt the need being very great in the community, it failed to bring forward proposals which met the basic Treasury BCR - their value for money standard.

"That is a great pity and the people of her local community have missed out, and I'm afraid if the blame lies anywhere, it is with her local council.”

Ms Smith said she wanted to hear from Wyre Council about what went wrong with the bid.