Medway Council was unsuccessful in a bid for £40m to regenerate parts of Medway, it has been revealed. The local authority put its hat in the ring for the second round of the government's Levelling Up fund to deliver two projects totalling £40m. One of the bids included £20m for a series of new walking and cycling routes in Gillingham, while the other £20m bid was set towards two buildings at its emerging business park, Innovation Park Medway (IPM), at Rochester Airport. The Levelling Up fund is a funding stream from central government, which is designed to invest money into new infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK. However, Medway Council lost out on its bid after the government announced that 111 areas across the UK have been awarded a share of £2.1bn. Successful bids include rail improvements in Cornwall, a new carbon-neutral education campus in Blackpool and a new ferry for Fair Isle in the Shetland Islands. Medway's bid for Gillingham involved the creation of a new 1.4km pedestrian and cycle route between Peel L&P's Chatham Waters development and Gillingham town centre, using a disused railway line. The funding was also set to be used to improve Gillingham High Street by revamping public spaces and repurposing empty buildings for commercial and community use. Meanwhile, the bid for Innovation Park Medway was planned to fund two net-zero buildings at the emerging business park, offering commercial and traditional office space for growing businesses. Innovation Park Medway is set to provide over 60,000 sqm of business space across two sites at Rochester Airport, with a particular focus on technology, precision engineering and manufacturing firms. While the government's latest announcement comes as a disappointment for Medway Council, it was good news for five councils elsewhere in Kent. Canterbury City Council was awarded nearly £20m to reopen Canterbury Castle, improve historic sites across the city centre and to revamp a number of walking and cycling routes. Meanwhile, Dover District Council won £18m to deliver a new creative and digital industry campus, and Kent County Council secured £45m to increase the number of border control points and exit routes at the Port of Dover. Successful Kent councils also include Swale Borough Council and Folkestone and Hythe District Council, who will invest £20m to regenerate Sheerness town centre and £19.7m for a revamp of Folkestone town centre respectively. In response to the announcement, leader of Medway Council, Cllr Alan Jarrett (Con), said: "Although we are disappointed that we have not secured Round 2 Levelling Up funding, we will continue to explore future funding opportunities for the exciting Open Lines Gillingham project and for two net zero carbon buildings as part of Innovation Park Medway.
“We previously received £14.4million from Round 1 of the government’s Levelling Up Fund for three projects - The Docking Station, The Brook Theatre and The Fitted Rigging House – so we were mindful that securing funding from Round 2 would be more challenging. "Thank you to everyone in the community who supported our bids. We will continue working with our partners to explore opportunities to further Medway’s ambitions, as well as support the establishment of Chatham as Medway’s city centre and its position as a creative hub.” In the first round of funding, Medway Council secured £14.4m for projects in Chatham, including The Brook Theatre, and the Docking Station and Fitted Rigging House, both at Chatham Historic Dockyard. A second round of funding was announced in March last year, focusing on transport, regeneration and town centres. The government received 525 bids by the deadline last summer, meaning just over a fifth were successful. The north west of England received the largest share of the latest round of the fund, at 17%, followed by the south east at 10%, according to the Local Government Chronicle. A future round of the Levelling Up fund has been confirmed to take place, although it's not yet known when this will open to bids. Comments are closed.
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August 2023
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