Heywood’s £20million Towns Fund will continue, confirms Rachel Reeve’s Budget.

Heywood’s leaders have celebrated the confirmation that £20m will still be coming to the town as part of the Long Term Plan for Towns Fund, announced in the Chancellor’s Budget.

The fund provides 55 towns across the country with funding over 10-years to invest in a ‘change-plan’, which is decided locally by the Heywood Town Board.

The new Government has announced the scheme will continue, fully funded, and reformed into a new ‘regeneration programme’ with new strategic objectives to be announced in due course.

Else Blundell, MP for Heywood and Middleton North, commented “Despite the black hole in the finances left by unfunded promises from the last government, I am delighted that the Chancellor has prioritised funding to Heywood and is supportive of local decision-making on where and how it is spent.  Local businesses, the council and other organisations know best what we need here, and I’m looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and joining in.”

The government has argued that the LTPT (Long Term Plan for Towns) Fund, prison programme, asylum contracts, public sector pay agreements and hospital building programme, were amongst schemes that been promised before the election by the previous government, but not in fact funded, and so there was speculation the LTPT Fund may have remained unfunded.