The UK government recently announced the results of the second round of successful bids for for its £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund. This money is provided to local governments with the ambitious (but pretty unspecific) aim of “creating opportunities for everyone” by addressing economic and social imbalances across the UK.
Winning projects have received as much as £50 million. In this round, the money will be used for ventures including building Eden Project North on Morecambe’s seafront and improving railway infrastructure across the UK. Smaller grants will go to projects involving electric buses, theatre and castle renovations, and new leisure centres and affordable housing.
All of the applicants – whether they won funding or not – have one thing in common: they all participated in a competitive bidding process. And while most bids for funding were not selected (out of 529 applications, only 111 will receive levelling up money in this round), they all represent hundreds of hours of work by in-house specialists in local government, and sometimes paid external consultants as well.
