£200m levelling up jackpot for the county

Lancashire has been awarded almost £200m in government levelling up cash to ‘spark transformational change’ - including £50m for Eden Project North.

As well as the Eden cash for Lancaster City Council, Blackpool will receive £40m to deliver a new ‘Multiversity’ - a carbon-neutral, education campus in Blackpool’s Talbot Gateway Central Business District.

Almost £50m will be given to Lancashire County Council to support three levelling up projects in the east of the county that aim to deliver “greener, safer travel for local people”.

There is also £20m to regenerate Accrington town centre. The funding for Hyndburn will see the transformation of the Market Hall into a bustling food hall and trading space and the vacant and dilapidated Burtons Chambers and Market Chambers turned into new office spaces.

Blackburn will receive another £20m for its ‘growth axis transport package’ with the money invested in the town’s infrastructure to tackle congestion and improve walking and cycling routes.

And Preston City Council will get £20m for its community infrastructure work. The funds will be used to regenerate the city’s parks, providing better green spaces for people to come together to exercise and socialise.

These Lancashire projects are among more than 100 across the country awarded a share of £2.1bn from round two of the government’s flagship Levelling Up Fund.

The government has also confirmed there will be a further round of the fund, providing more opportunity to level up places across the UK.

Announcing the cash boost, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “Through greater investment in local areas, we can grow the economy, create good jobs and spread opportunity everywhere.

“By reaching even more parts of the country than before, we will build a future of optimism and pride in people’s lives and the places they call home.”

The £50m Lancaster has secured from the fund will cover half of the projected building cost of the ‘game-changing’ Eden Project North eco-attraction planned for Morecambe’s seafront. The cash has been seen as crucial to Eden moving forward.

Around 300 high-quality green jobs are forecast to be directly created by the new attraction, with more than 1,000 additional new jobs supported across the region.

Annual visitor numbers are projected to be 740,000 and additional revenue brought into local businesses by Eden North is set to exceed the £50m government investment within months of the project opening its doors to visitors.

Planning permission for the attraction was given last February. City Council leader Caroline Jackson has stressed the project is crucial for the area, saying: “It will transform the local economy and have a transformative effect, not just on Morecambe, but the whole region.”

Funding for Blackpool’s Multiversity will allow Blackpool and The Fylde College to replace its ageing facilities with world-class state-of-the-art ones in the heart of the town centre. The Multiversity will promote higher-level skills, including automation and artificial intelligence, helping young people secure jobs of the future.

The government’s levelling up secretary Michael Gove said: “We are firing the starting gun on more than 100 transformational projects in every corner of the UK that will revitalise communities that have historically been overlooked but are bursting with potential. 

“This new funding will create jobs, drive economic growth, and help to restore local pride. We are delivering on the people’s priorities, levelling up across the UK to ensure that no matter where you are from, you can go as far as your talents will take you.”

All areas were invited to bid for round two by August 2022 to invest in projects that improve the everyday lives of people in their areas. The government says all applications were assessed using a “fair, robust and transparent methodology” published online.