UK Community Renewal Fund

3. Local priorities

The Community Renewal Fund is as much about finding better ways of working as it is about promoting discrete priority projects. The old restrictions placed on what could be done under differing funding regimes are gone, and Community Renewal Fund now supports innovative projects which can work simultaneously with businesses and individuals to develop more impactful outcomes.

Locally the following investment priorities, additional to the national ones, were identified:

Investment in skills

• Driving up technical skills and supporting progression to Higher Technical Qualifications and Apprenticeships
• Reskill and upskill the Lancashire workforce to drive productivity, including digital skills, skills associated with Net Zero and skills which enable businesses to diversify and pivot their offer and/or business model
• Raise digital inclusion
• Increase leadership and management and workforce planning capacity in SME's
• Workplace initiatives that focus on the retention and reskilling of ageing workers

Investment for local businesses

• A comparatively low level of business formation
• The growing impact of ethnic minority run businesses on economic growth
• Retention of high value jobs in the Advanced Engineering and Manufacturing sector
• Creation of new business in digital and knowledge-based industries.

Communities and place

• Further developing the local heat network and community energy projects where a further development of feasibility plans / business cases are needed
• Building on the clear cultural priorities set out in the LEP's Cultural Strategy and further developing high quality activities which could strength Lancashire's bid to become the UK City of Culture in 2025
• Developing a strong and integrated offer to rural areas which includes decarbonisation, capitalising on digital opportunities and rural enterprise.

Supporting people into employment

• Youth Unemployment and NEET (16-24 years of age)
• local, tailored, wrap-around support to enable people to take an integrated journey up the Lancashire Skills Escalator
• collaborative work with employers, to enable unemployed and low skilled Lancashire residents to move into jobs in areas of demand, taking into account the impact of COVID-19
• increase the availability of people trained with specialist digital skills in the Lancashire area