Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what progress the Government has made on the Towns Fund.

In September 2019, Government announced the initial 101 places invited to develop Town Deal proposals as part of the £3.6 billion Towns Fund. In June 2020, as part of the Prime Minister’s commitment to bringing forward £5 billion of capital investment projects to support jobs and economic recovery, the Government brought forward over £80 million from the Towns Fund for investment in capital projects that would have an immediate impact across these 101 towns.

On 27 October, we announced the first seven Town Deal offers, worth almost £180 million, for Barrow-in-Furness, Blackpool, Darlington, Norwich, Peterborough, Torquay and Warrington. Further information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/first-town-deals-worth-almost-180-million-announced

Announcements will be made in due course on further Town Deals.

Government is also committed to a future competitive round of the Towns Fund and we will publish further details of this in due course.