Nuneaton and Bedworth get new levelling-up boost

Marcus Jones has welcomed news of more levelling-up money heading to Nuneaton and Bedworth

Nuneaton MP Marcus Jones has revealed that £4,028,173 has been awarded to the borough council from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) – and £2,543,360 has been awarded to Warwickshire County Council for Multiply, a new UK-wide programme to equip hundreds of thousands of adults with functional numeracy skills.

UKSPF local communities to invest in local priorities from regenerating high streets, to tackling economic decline, and is intended to help reverse geographical inequalities.

Multiply aims to help people improve their employment prospects. This could be done by offering free tutoring, digital training and flexible courses to help adults with low-level maths skills get back into work, as well as measures to get more young people into high-skilled jobs.

Huge new railway bridge will be driven through Leamington this Easter

Mr Jones said: “I have always stated that I am determined to influence and work with the government to ensure that everyone from our area is able to reach their full potential.

“The government has already pledged over £46 million to improve Nuneaton town centre which has been a significant catalyst for the magnificent Transforming Nuneaton programme which now has funding of over £155 million.

“This additional £6.5 million which has been awarded to Nuneaton’s borough and county councils can be used across a range of projects from supporting adults who lack basic numeracy skills, helping young people into good jobs, and regenerating our high streets.

“My passion is that this investment will help our local residents to fulfil their potential, and will help further enhance Nuneaton’s transformation and bright future.”

At yesterday’s, Wednesday’s, county council communities overview and scrutiny committee meeting, it was explained that in terms of levelling up funding Nuneaton and Bedworth had been placed in the most needy category, ranked 89 out of 363 local authorities, as part of the Chancellor’s Spring Statement announcements.

North Warwickshire and Stratford have been placed in category two, with Rugby and Warwick in the lowest category three.

The county’s funding lead William Tse said: “Levelling up examines the metrics of each lower tier authority and assigns a category weighting to the area. This category determines the respective need to level up and the likelihood of success in the three stages of the application process.”