Levelling up grants not working for ordinary people

The way of distributing levelling up money is old fashioned, and not working for ordinary people, says Northumberland Labour

Following the announcement of levelling up money by the government earlier in the week, Northumberland Labour says the system is not working for ordinary people.

Leader Scott Dickinson said: “The irony of this whole situation is the government has spent 13 years levelling down, stripping local authorities of the funds they need to provide services for local people and making the gap between the haves and have-nots wider than its ever been.

“After having done this they’ve then decided what they really need to do is level back up so they hold a bidding process to invite local authorities to beg for cash.

These bids, four out of five of which were unsuccessful, cost the local authority money which could better be spent on services for residents. The decisions are made in Whitehall, not by someone living locally who can see what the local people need.

“As lovely as it is for the PM to swan around the country giving money out like sweets it would be better to allocate local authorities the appropriate amount in the first place so they can run and develop services.

“We’ve been very fortunate to get £14.7m to improve cycle and walkways in the county, but this is not tackling the lack of social housing which is a basic factor in levelling up or the fact that people can’t afford to keep warm.

“Labour has plans in its Take Back Control Bill to devolve more power to local people so they can decide where money should go rather than have to go cap in hand to Whitehall.”