Birkenhead MP welcomes £25m Town Deal Fund Award

Mick Whitley, MP for Birkenhead, has said that he is delighted that the bid for government funds by the Birkenhead Town Deal Board has resulted in an award of £25 million towards regeneration projects in the town.

While the original bid was for £45 million for the projects shortlisted by the Board, securing over half of that money as part of the Town Investment Plan is a credit to the council, the officers, Board members and consultants who worked hard to prepare and submit the bid.

Together with the £24.6m from the government’s Future High Streets fund, £8.3m awarded by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to remove the flyovers by the tunnel entrance and a further £1m for Town Deal accelerator funds, the additional £25 million means that building a better Birkenhead is no longer a campaign slogan – it is a real prospect.

Mick Whitley said,

On 15 July I received a letter from Luke Hall MP at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government informing me of the good news.

The money must be used to improve the transport, cultural life, and environment in both the town centre and the waterfront.

With these improvements I am convinced that we can dispel the ghost town image that haunts our shopping areas and our waterfront. We can reinvigorate the town making Birkenhead a great place to live, visit and work in.

My particular concern is that we ensure the funds we receive are used to create decent and well-paid jobs for the people of our town. Such jobs are key to real community wealth building.

Together with the recent announcement of the plans to build electric vehicles at Vauxhall – where a number of my constituents work – and my continuing campaign to get defence procurement orders for Cammell Laird shipyard I believe real progress for decent employment in our town is on the cards.

The key now is to ensure that the funds we have received start to deliver tangible results. We need to move from planning a better future to building one for the people of Birkenhead.”

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