Wyre councillor defends unsuccessful regeneration bid for Fleetwood and blasts 'cost effectiveness' rules

Areas like Fleetwood could find it hard to obtain future Government regeneration grants unless some of the stringent rules recently used are changed.
A £22m  Future High Street Fund bid for Fleetwood proved unsuccessfulA £22m  Future High Street Fund bid for Fleetwood proved unsuccessful
A £22m Future High Street Fund bid for Fleetwood proved unsuccessful

That was the grim view of senior Wyre council member, Coun Alan Vincent, who defended the authority's unsuccessful bid for £22m from the Future High Street Fund which was deemed to not represent 'value for money'.

The ambitious bid focused on improving housing in the town centre; reviving key sites including the market and museum; and taking steps towards restoring the old Poulton to Fleetwood railway line.

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The shock failure of Wyre's bid for a funding pot which seemed to be tailor made for a deprived town like Fleetwood led to an angry reaction from Fleetwood's Labour MP Cat Smith.

Coun Alan VincentCoun Alan Vincent
Coun Alan Vincent

She blasted the Government for failing to offer funds to help Fleetwood, which has high levels of deprivation and unemployment, a struggling high street and areas with a lower life expectancy than the UK average.

The MP suggested that the bid might have been rejected because Fleetwood has a Labour MP and she raised question of possible political bias, which local government secretary Robert Jenrick rejected and he suggested Wyre's bid simply did not meet the threshold required.

This led Ms Smith to question what had "gone wrong" with the bid following the decision on Boxing Day.

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But Coun Vincent, deputy leader of Wyre and also the resources portfolio holder, says the bid was strong and only failed because of the Government's insistence on "value for money" returns on bids submitted, which he said was always going to be hard to achieve in a deprived area like Fleetwood.

The councillor, who lives in Fleetwood, said: "Wyre and our consultants provided a very ambitious bid because Fleetwood needs ambition, it cannot hold back.

"The Government has decided that applications need to be based on increasing land values and the cost effectiveness of the project.

"In our view its strict criteria seems to favour areas that have high land values, and Fleetwood is not that kind of area.

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"If the Government maintains this approach to decision making on funds, it is going to be very difficult for Fleetwood to be accepted for this kind of fund again.

"in my opinion that criteria needs to change."

Fleetwood was not alone in being unsuccessful, with bids from Blackpool, Scarborough and Hull among those missing out, but Kirkham was among the 72 areas to get a share of the £830m fund.

Mr Jenrick, whose department is handling the fund, says applications needed to meet the Treasury's "stringent test" on whether each one would ultimately deliver value for money to the public purse.

The Treasury is using criteria based on benefit cost ratio (BCR) rules which mean proposed schemes must show a minimum benefit of 2.1 times the cost - and projects which did not would be unsuccessful.

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Coun Vincent did not agree with Ms Smith's concerns that there might be a political, bias.in the decision.

He said: "There's nothing in that, I think it's nonsense.

"Wyre Council's track record for funding bids for Fleetwood has been very strong for the last few years and the Government has been prepared to put money in to large scale schemes like the Memorial Park and the Project Neptune fish and food park."

A spokesman for Wyre Council gave the authority's official response to the decision, stating: “We are bitterly disappointed with the outcome, our officers worked very hard on the bid but sadly we were unsuccessful on this occasion.

"Our work on the Future High Street bid won’t be wasted, we intend to continue to explore other funding opportunities as they arise”.

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