The UK Shared Prosperity Fund provides a great opportunity to shape our town and city centres for the next three years. If used wisely, the Fund can help local authorities and partners in sharing prosperity across our towns to move from post-COVID recovery planning, to delivering medium-term projects that can begin to transform places and strengthen partnerships.
Levelling Up
The Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda and a significant component of support for places across the UK. It will provide £2.6 billion of new funding by March 2025 including investments for sharing prosperity across our towns. All areas of the UK will receive an allocation from the Fund via a funding formula rather than a competition.
Place-based focus
The Shared Prosperity Fund has a strong place-based focus with its stated primary goal being to build pride in place and increase life chances across the UK. This aligns with Levelling Up White Paper missions, particularly:
‘By 2030, pride in place, such as people’s satisfaction with their town centre and engagement in local culture and community, will have risen in every area of the UK, with the gap between the top performing and other areas closing.’
Recognising the acute challenges town centres and communities have faced during the pandemic, the Fund aims to improve the places people live in, and support individuals and businesses.
Eligible interventions
Half of the 41 eligible interventions listed in the Shared Prosperity Fund Prospectus and accompanying guidance, relate to places, communities and business support. This gives local authorities the chance to select interventions that are directly relevant to transforming their town and city centres.
Though seemingly a complicated read that lists layers of objectives, interventions and measurable outcomes, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund prospectus actually offers local authorities scope to tailor proposals to identified local needs.
Diversifying & animating
Eligible interventions include a healthy emphasis on diversifying and animating places including ‘improving retail and services’ through investment in open air markets, for example, and support for ‘community infrastructure’ that can encompass the delivery of events programmes. There is also a strong emphasis on ‘building civic capacity’ through support for training programmes to assist local civil society and community group leaders.
July application window
So, what’s the catch? You might need to postpone that July holiday! Local authorities need to submit investment plans via an online platform between June 30th and August 1st, 2022. These investment plans need to include proposals for three years, be local authority-wide and be created through a partnership of key local stakeholders.
Building on recovery planning
The government is though making £20,000 available per lead local authority to undertake initial preparatory work for the Fund, including developing their local investment plan. Our analysis indicates that there will be a manageable read-across from town centre recovery plans developed by local authorities and partners using guidance such as the LGA’s town centre toolkit or the High Street Task Force’s COVID-19 recovery framework.
Help at hand
To make that July deadline just a little more manageable, we are happy to share our guide on the Shared Prosperity Fund & its opportunities for communities, place & local business. We have already done the research, and so we are happy to save you a day of web site browsing and move everyone a step forward. Just drop an email to services@people-places.net stating the town(s)/city(s) where you are involved, and we’ll send you the guide for free.
Find out more about the Levelling Up White Paper including other sources of funding such as the £150 million Community Ownership Fund that will run over a total of 4 years until 2024/25.
