Lancashire's Levelling Up Fund Bid
Thank you to everyone who has been involved in helping us to develop detailed proposals for our ambitious Levelling Up East Lancashire programme. The feedback and ideas from stakeholders, communities, and residents has helped us to understand where and how improvements will make the most difference across Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle and Rossendale.
The programme is made up of £5m funding from Lancashire County Council and an indicative allocation of £50m from Government following a successful bid in 2023. It will deliver a range of improvements through three connected projects:
- Safer, greener, healthier streets
- Accessible and vibrant town centres
- Public transport improvements.
The improvements planned through these three projects will provide:
- faster and more reliable bus journeys
- safer and more accessible streets
- access to better jobs, pay, and living standards
- more attractive and busy town centres
- enhanced public and green spaces to spend time in
Our proposals have been carefully developed to ensure a strategic and joined up approach to delivering improvements across Lancashire, and these projects compliment wider investment projects across the county and at district level.
You can find out more about our initial bid and the engagement we have carried out so far in the section below.
View the detailed proposals for the projects and have your say by 2 September 2024 (extended from 19 August 2024).
For help accessing the information or survey you can visit your local library to get online, or email us to request an alternative format at EastLancsLUF@lancashire.gov.uk.
Next steps
We will submit our final plans to Government later this year and we will continue to engage and inform local communities and other stakeholders as we move into the delivery phase. Following confirmation of the funding and final programme, work is expected to start in 2025.
Engagement activity
We carried out initial engagement to help us develop our initial bid. Following this, we carried out more engagement, between October 2023 and May 2024 and the feedback from this significantly influenced the development of the Levelling Up East Lancashire proposals.
We carried out significant engagement with stakeholders and residents including local workshop events, route visits and online surveys. We listened to views at in-person events in areas that we are proposing to deliver Safer, Greener, Healthier Streets schemes and in each area that we are proposing Accessible and Vibrant Town Centre schemes. The engagement sessions gave us an understanding of how local communities feel the proposed interventions should be prioritised.
We worked closely with district councils and other professional and community stakeholders across the four districts to ensure that our plans are feasible and complement other projects, from a range funding schemes such as local Levelling Up schemes, county transport and travel initiatives and town masterplans.
These insights have helped us to shape, adapt and improve our initial plans so that we can deliver schemes that matter most to local people. This means that proposals have been tailored for each project and may include improvements such as new surfacing on pavements or roads, better street lighting, seating areas or tree planting. Other changes may include road safety measures to make streets and crossing points safer, and support walking and cycling as travel options for people alongside public transport and car travel.
Lancashire Levelling Up East Lancashire Bid
Lancashire's initial bid was designed to develop a range of complementary public transport, walking and cycling projects to significantly improve travel opportunities for people across East Lancashire, making them safer and greener.
When developing Lancashire's bid for funding, we assessed lots of data to identify areas that would benefit from the Levelling Up Fund, including levels of employment, health, physical activity, air quality, car ownership, road accidents, walking and cycling, and bus and rail services.
It was determined that parts of East Lancashire would benefit the most and had the highest potential to meet the criteria of the fund.
After considering 600 potential transport schemes county-wide, the council selected themed interventions in the East Lancashire districts of Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle and Rossendale. The bid was designed to help deliver:
- Safer, greener and healthier streets
- Better walking and cycling routes
- Improvements to local public transport
Find out more about our Levelling Up Fund award.
About the Levelling Up Fund
The Levelling Up Fund was designed to invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK and support town centre and high street regeneration, local transport projects, and cultural and heritage assets.
A range of District and Unitary council bids from across Lancashire formed part of the 100 plus projects that received a share of the £2.1 billion pot in round two of the government’s flagship Levelling Up Fund.
Alongside the successful county council bid, government awards included £50 million to Lancaster City Council to support Eden Project Morecambe, as well as bids in Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool.
Lancashire County Council has supported successful bids for Burnley, Pendle, Hyndburn and Preston including bespoke funding support from the council’s £5million local Levelling Up Investment Fund and £12.8m Local Economic Recovery Fund.
With schemes in Burnley and Pendle receiving funding in Round 1 of the scheme, Lancashire’s overall Levelling Up investment is in excess of £225 million from the government scheme to date.