‘Not our lived experience’: Tunbridge Wells leaders rubbish Sunak levelling up boast

Rishi Sunak at a campaign event in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in July. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images

Rishi Sunak’s boast to Tunbridge Wells residents that he diverted public funds from deprived urban areas to help those such as the affluent Kent borough has been rubbished by local leaders.

The prime minister was told by the council this had “not been our lived experience” and only one competitive funding bid by the council for a pot of central government money had been successful in the past six years.