Town Deals and post Covid-19 recovery

The debate will be led by Damien Moore MP and will last 90 minutes.

Town Deals are part of the Towns Fund, which was initially announced by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in July 2019. In September 2019, the government announced a list of 100 towns in England (later expanded to 101) that been invited to develop Town Deals and bid for up to £25 million each (or up to £50 million in exceptional circumstances).

In October 2020, the first seven Town Deal funding allocations were announced, worth up to £178.7 million. Since then, a number of other allocations have been made, accounting for a total of around £2 billion; there are now only 15 towns of the original 101 that have not had Town Deals announced.

Although the Government originally planned to run further rounds of the Towns Fund, this has now been replaced by the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund. This Fund was announced in the 2020 Spending Review; the prospectus published alongside the 2021 Spring Budget stated that the Fund would focus on capital investment in local infrastructure and would be delivered through local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales. The first round of the Fund will focus on three themes – transport projects, town centre and high street regeneration and cultural investment.