North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has highlighted the benefits of the UK Government’s Levelling Up Fund to North Wales and welcomed the fact that unlike the European Structural Funds programme in Wales, it will not just be focused on West Wales and the Valleys.
The £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and investing in cultural and heritage assets.
Responding to the Statement by the Minister for Economy on the UK Government’s EU successor funds, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and Levelling Up Fund, in yesterday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood said the European Structural Fund Programme funding administered by successive Welsh Governments failed to close the prosperity gap and welcomed the fact that community organisations across North Wales have been included in the Levelling Up funding bids.
He said:
“Wales only continued to be eligible for European Structural Funding because, despite billions spent in successive rounds, it failed to close the prosperity gap it was intended for, unlike other nations that entered the project at the same time, like Poland, which of course did and excluded themselves. You say Flintshire is ‘excluded from the priority funding list’. Do you therefore recognise that the Structural Funds Programme in Wales was focused on West Wales and the Valleys and prioritised 15 counties, but Flintshire and Wrexham were outside those?
“And how do you respond to the charities and community-interest organisations in Flintshire that told me this summer that they contacted Welsh Government officials asking if Flintshire could be added to the Levelling-Up Fund list - your officials made enquiries and came back confirming that they could and, of course, they've now been included in the bids?”
In his response, the Minister claimed there have been “significant outcomes in terms of jobs that have been saved and created” with European funds and said “I'm proud of what we've done and the lessons that we've learned.”
