Many of Greater Manchester's levelling up fund bids were 'guaranteed to fail' as the Government changed the selection criteria after applications had been received, councillors have heard. In January, Greater Manchester missed out on more than £276m of Levelling Up money in the latest round of funding announced by the government.
Three bids were successful, bringing nearly £60m to Trafford, Wigan and Oldham. It has now emerged that as applications for the fund were oversubscribed, ministers at the department for levelling up changed the criteria and deselected many bids from the north west as the area had 'exceeded its allocation' of cash grants in previous years.
Ministers also made the decision after bids had been lodged with them to limit any successful schemes to one per authority and take account of those areas which had received previous levelling up fund cash. The Municipal Journal estimates that councils across the country spent around £27m in submitting bids for levelling up funding with around 80 per cent of projects later rejected.
