More than half of the UK's levelling up projects remain unfinished years after funding was allocated, according to data released under freedom of information laws and reviewed by the Guardian. Of 1,347 projects, 821 had yet to be finalised as of May this year, meaning 57% remain unfinished. Seventy-three council areas that had a bid accepted have not seen a single project fully completed, and the Guardian has since identified 59 projects completed since the data was collected.
The figures cover three main funds: the Future High Streets Fund (launched in 2018), Town Deals (2019) and the Levelling Up Fund (2021), central pillars of the Conservative promise to revive left-behind towns. The Future High Streets Fund was supposed to complete in March 2024, and the official deadline for spending all of the Towns Fund and Levelling Up Fund money was March 2026. Under Labour, the Levelling Up Fund and Town Deals were consolidated into the Local Regeneration Fund, with a new deadline of March 2028, and the government has launched the Pride in Place programme, which gives places longer-term funding with local boards deciding how it is spent rather than making councils compete for grants.
Delivery has been slowest in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, despite fewer projects overall. North-west England and Yorkshire also had low completion rates, but those regions were allocated the most projects. Blackburn with Darwen had eight projects funded and none fully completed; all eight projects funded in Leeds are also yet to close.
Part of the reason for the delays has been inflation, which pushed up costs and led councils to scale back or pause projects. The national figures exclude 69 projects that were cancelled or merged into another existing project, and some projects are broader programmes where parts may have been completed. The government data may also miss some recent completions; the Guardian attempted to correct this using published online announcements, but it is possible some completed projects are missing from the data.
Jack Shaw, director of Groundwork Research, which supplied the data to the Guardian, said the figures showed a large gap between the intentions of levelling up and what had been delivered. “Despite significant funding, too many one-off commitments have failed to translate into substantive improvements in communities or local economies,” he said. He called the Pride in Place programme a step forward because it provides communities with £2m a year over 10 years, but added that the government also needs to look at how investment can reach communities more quickly.
Zoë Billingham, director of the IPPR North thinktank, said the Tories’ Town Fund created a “begging bowl culture” in which councils approached Whitehall for centrally controlled pots of money. Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England chief economist, said the levelling up fund was “better than nothing” but was “the kind of worst of Whitehall” because decisions were centralised and there “looked to be degrees of pork barrel politics.” Sarah Longlands, chief executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, warned Labour’s Pride in Place programme could face similar pitfalls, saying capital money takes time and cannot always be done quickly.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said the government is committed to driving good growth in every postcode, and pointed to the £5.8bn Pride in Place programme and the Local Regeneration Fund as ways to give local leaders stability and deliver funding quicker.