Harlow’s Conservative parliamentary candidate, Hannah Ellis, welcomes support in House of Lords for Harlow town centre funding
News / Mon 22nd Jul 2024 at 06:51pm
HANNAH Ellis, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Harlow, has welcomed the support of Baroness Scott of Bybrook, the former Levelling Up Minister in the House of Lords, who raised the plight of funding for Harlow’s Town Centre during Questions today.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook said, “I understand a number of local councils have had spending commitments suspended, including Harlow in Essex, which is set to lose out on £20 million towards the rebuilding of their town centre.
Can [the minister] tell me how many councils have had these disappointing letters and what the Government plans to do to support councils, like Harlow, who were relying on these commitments to deliver growth and regeneration.”
Responding on behalf of the new Labour Government, Baroness Taylor of Stevenage said that there is a pause on existing funding commitments.
Hannah Ellis, (who was) the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Harlow, said, “This funding is so important for our town centre and I welcome the support of Baroness Scott who has raised the significant concerns that we, and many others in local government, share at this time. The Government must resolve this as soon as possible.
I promised to fight for Harlow regardless of the election result and to hold our new MP to account every step of the way. Chris Vince must step up and fight for Harlow too.
“We cannot allow the hard work of our Conservative Council and former MP to be undone. It is time for Chris Vince to put the interests of our town before the Labour Party and he has my full support in doing so.”
Pedro
2024-07-22 21:16:22
Chris will not put the interests of Harlow residents above towing the party line, he will be desperate to impress Starmer at the detriment of the town
David
2024-07-23 06:53:54
Still no word from Chris Vince , one can imagine he fully supports the withdrawal of the 20 million pound funding for the town he represents.
Neil Francis Rickards
2024-07-23 07:25:27
Thats what you get for voting labour.
Tony Edwards
2024-07-23 10:24:24
Interesting - how the Tories have conveniently forgotten the parliamentary row in 2021over how the Towns Fund money was allocated. Indeed the Public Accounts Committee stated at the time said they were "not convinced by the rationales for selecting some towns and not others and that "the justification offered by ministers for selecting individual towns are vague and based on sweeping assumptions." So whilst I have no doubt with regard to the merits of the bid submitted by Harlow, It should come as no surprise that the Towns Fund scheme as a whole is now being reviewed. See links https://www.bbc.com/news/56283199 . However the important point is that the scheme is "being reviewed", and the current Harlow administration might want to reconsider how best it should make its case.
Guy Flegman
2024-07-23 11:50:31
You can guarantee that the funding will be withheld untill we elect a Labour council. And why these politicians carry on with their petty bickering, Rome still burns.
Stephen Archer
2024-07-23 14:03:26
If you follow the link provided by Tony Edwards its not difficult to piece together what's happened here. Whilst Town Fund money was allocated according to a quantitative measure based on the Office of National Statistics index of deprivation, there was enough wriggle room to enable Boris Johnson's government to skew it in favour of his mates' constituencies. So whilst Harlow has a good case for the money, it's not surprising the new Government wants to take a look at the overall fairness of the scheme, hence the review.
David Forman
2024-07-23 15:03:02
The BBC article mentions the National Audit Office report of July 2020 regarding the Towns Fund scoring process. Figure 15 on page 37 of the NAO report shows that in the medium priority group there are 12 areas worse off than Harlow, such as South Okendon, Chadwell St Mary and Sheerness. Areas better off than Harlow like Colchester get included. So, all we need is for the Labour luvvies to keep talking this up for Harlow to get shafted by Sir Kid Starver and Angela Rayner's review. See NAO report at https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Review-of-the-Town-Deals-selection-process.pdf
Dan Swords
2024-07-23 15:07:28
Tony - again you show your complete misunderstanding of the matter. This is nothing to do with the Towns Fund allocated in 2021. This is about the Long Term Plan for Towns Funding announced in March. The motion you voted against set this out very clear but evidently you didn’t read it - despite calling it an “Aunt Sally” and now pretending to care about it. You really should get on top of the detail before arguing it.
David Forman
2024-07-23 15:14:33
Good point by Dan Swords. So Labour luvvies want our town screwed by Public Accounts Committee and NAO criteria that isn't even relevant to the funding at risk. Harlow Labour give the impression that they are keen to sabotage our town's future, possibly because their bids for government money were so p1ss poor!
David Forman
2024-07-23 15:32:34
The NAO figure 15 on page 37 gives the total score formulated by the "Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government across seven assessment criteria which were intended to capture each town's level of need and growth potential." This resulted in 12 towns having higher needs in our region and in the medium priority group. However, Tony Edwards missed the point about "growth potential" which is a more subjective rather than absolute measure. Clearly, the Labour luvvies don't rate our town's potential.
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