Stronger Towns Fund

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I notice that this new money is heavily weighted towards the north. Can the Minister give me any hope for my nearest town, which has four names, namely Radstock, Midsomer Norton, Westfield and Paulton? It is a built-up area with perhaps 30,000 people but it has only four parish councils within its unitary authority, Bath and North East Somerset. The area has taken very hard knocks in the last two generations. It has completely lost coal mining; it lost two railways, which are now cycle tracks; and it has lost a swathe of the printing industry. The result is that many people have to commute into either Bristol or Wiltshire. Is this the kind of area which, although it is in the south, has some hope of extra help?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I think I can give the noble Lord some comfort in relation to the community that he talks about—Radstock and so on in Somerset. Like many parts of the country, that community has lost coalfields. First, the south-west will get a £33 million allocation over the length of the programme, so there is that opportunity. But significantly, there is also the £600 million I referred to and it is open to communities throughout England to bid for that. I am sure that well-developed ideas will come forward from the towns and communities he was talking about. They will certainly be eligible within that part of the programme.