Last week it was leaked that Conservative MPs have received secret orders to stop using the phrase “Levelling Up”.
It’s an order I imagine Suffolk’s Conservative MPs will be more than happy to follow given the announcement that, yet again, the Government has refused to give a single penny from the “Levelling Up Fund” to our county.
Schemes put forward by Ipswich Borough Council, Suffolk County Council, East Suffolk District Council and Babergh District Council were all rejected.
Our bid was to ensure that Broomhill Pool could finally reopen and for a new sports centre at Gainsborough.
The Broomhill funding was to cover the large gap that had opened up in the project’s budgets after Covid as a result of soaring construction inflation and increased borrowing costs. Without this money, it is hard at the moment to see how Fusion Lifestyle can proceed with the project.
The Gainsborough project was for new, carbon-neutral, Sports and Athletics Centre with an 8-court sports hall, bigger gym and fitness suites, a bigger new Gymnastics Centre and an 8-lane athletics track as well as new grass and artificial pitches and new changing rooms.
Again, soaring construction and borrowing costs mean that, without Government funding, this project doesn’t currently stack up financially and will in all likelihood have to be significantly pared back.
The County Council’s scheme was focussed on Ipswich too and would have seen Bury Road Park and Ride reopened, a new bridge from Felaw Street to the island site and improved cycling infrastructure. These projects are also in jeopardy following the Government’s refusal to back them.
The whole Levelling Up Fund process has been widely, and rightly, criticised.
Originally pitched as a way to rebalance funding between richer and poorer areas of the country it will do nothing of the sort. Its £2.1billion in no way compensates local communities for the billions that have been taken out in Government cuts since 2010. It pales in comparison to the £106billion – and rising – the Government is spending on HS2 or the £19billion on the Elizabeth Line.
Worse still, even this money is not going to the poorest areas. How can it possibly be fair that £19million is being given to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s affluent Richmond constituency while deprived areas in Ipswich and Lowestoft get nothing?
It is a hugely wasteful process. The Government requires all bids to be supported by masses of information which takes time, effort and money to produce. If a bid is turned down, then that is money down the drain. Yet four out of five Levelling Up bids – some from the most deprived areas of the country that can least afford to lose money – were unsuccessful. They are now worse off than if they hadn’t bothered.
There is no transparency around the decisions about who gets what. Everything is done behind closed doors and on the whim of Conservative Government ministers. We still don’t know why Ipswich’s bid was rejected. In the letter from the Government informing us Ipswich wasn’t getting anything we were promised feedback at some point, but they couldn’t tell us exactly when because they were very busy.
Levelling Up Funding has been likened to someone stealing £50 from you, giving you a couple of pounds back – but only after you’ve begged for it – and expecting you to feel grateful. In Suffolk’s case we didn’t even get the two quid back.
That’s why a Labour Government would do things differently, ending the wasteful competitive process that pits community against community. It would oversee the biggest ever transfer of power out of Westminster through the Take Back Control Act, so local leaders can harness the skills and assets in their area to drive growth. It would stop communities having to go cap-in-hand to Whitehall to get small crumbs of their own money back.
It has been said that the Levelling Up Fund is purely about the Conservatives bribing people to vote for them at the next General Election. If that’s the case, then the message for people in Suffolk couldn’t be clearer: the Conservatives don’t want your vote.