Delight as Bridlington gets £20m investment from Government
Bridlington and Withernsea will each receive £20 million of investment from the Government’s newly announced Pride in Place Programme.
The leader of East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Cllr Anne Handley, has welcomed the decision to invest in the towns.
The Government hopes the funding will help restore pride and community cohesion in overlooked areas.
A Government report on the programme explains that where the funding is to be spent will be decided by “a Neighbourhood Board, led by an independent Chair, that includes residents, local businesses, civil society and community organisations, working in partnership with their respective local authority.”
The local authority in this case would be East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
Welcoming the news of the new funding, Cllr Handley said: “We’re delighted the Government has chosen to invest in two of our priority regeneration areas.
"This investment will form the cornerstone of our coastal economic strategy which is currently under development. It will allow us to target investment towards the 5% of our population that live in our most vulnerable neighbourhoods.”
The Government’s Secretary of State for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Steve Reed MP, said the fund seeks to reverse a decline in local pride in their local areas. Mr Reed wrote the foreword to the Government’s report in which he states: “The impact of this decline in local pride has been corrosive.
"It divides communities, deprives public institutions of trust, and emboldens extremists to attack the foundations of our country.
“The causes aren’t straight forward – austerity, deindustrialisation, an uncritical embrace of globalisation are all a part of it – but what connects it all is a style of Government which deprived people of control. Leaders have a choice; we don’t have to follow the well-trodden path of hoarding power and micromanaging from dark corridors in Whitehall. Decisions about communities, made without them. This Government sees an alternative – putting people in control of their lives, and their local area.
“Make no mistake that this is a pilot in a new way of governing, and it dwarfs anything that has come before.
"The Party, founded a hundred years ago to serve working families, is today putting working families in control of their lives and their neighbourhood. This is our alternative to the forces trying to pull us apart. This is our answer to those who feel silenced, ignored and forgotten.”