The 100 places selected for the government’s £3.6 billion Towns Fund will now be able to draw up their proposals for a multi-million pound investment, the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government Simon Clarke MP has announced today (15 June 2020).

The government has today published further Towns Fund guidance which sets out the key information local leaders need to prepare for a Town Deal and develop proposals in the form of a Town Investment Plan.

It comes on the day that non-essential retail begins to reopen in our towns as they look to recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Through the guidance, communities, businesses and local leaders will now be able to work together and draw up ambitious plans to transform their town’s economic growth prospects with a focus on improved transport, broadband connectivity, skills and culture.

Simon Clarke MP, Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government said:

Ensuring that every part of this country has the opportunity to grow and prosper is at the heart of the mission of this Government, and our Towns Fund is an essential part of making sure that our communities have the level of investment they need to drive jobs and economic growth.

Investment in our towns is needed more than ever as we move to the next stage of the economic recovery from Covid-19, and the Fund will play an important part in the kick-starting of our economic recovery and levelling up our regions.

With this new guidance, communities, businesses and local leaders will now be able to work together to draw up their ambitious plans bring investment and growth to their local area.

The 100 selected places will now have 4 weeks to decide whether or not to submit a Towns Investment Plan by 31 July 2020 or, in a later cohort, by either October 2020 or early 2021.

All 100 places will be supported throughout the development of their Town Investment Plans by the Towns Hub, which consists of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Towns Fund Delivery Partnership led by Arup.

On 27 July 2019 the Prime Minister announced that the £3.6 billion Towns Fund would support an initial 100 town deals across England. See further details of the announcement.

A Town Deal is an agreement in principle between government, the Lead Council and the Town Deal Board. It will set out a vision and strategy for the town, and what each party agrees to do to achieve this vision

See the 100 places being supported to develop Town Deals.

The first 17 workers returned to the construction site for our Main Site Command Facility today (Monday, 15 June) to support an agreed task to power up some key computer systems.

The construction site has been set up to support this task and the arrangements now in place will support the restart of the full project.

This construction site will be the fifth to reintroduce working on the Sellafield site since lockdown in March.

We have been slowly and carefully bringing our major projects construction sites back online one at a time over the past 2 months. Each project restarted so far has been chosen due to its critical role in progressing the Sellafield mission.

Our Main Site Command Facility will be the new control centre for our security and emergency response teams, using state-of-the-art technology provided by our Security Systems Architecture Upgrade Project.

Once operational, the command centre within the facility will provide us with a significantly improved capability to react and manage security and emergency events – critically important as we shift our focus from reprocessing to site clean-up.

As with all our construction restarts, those coming back onto the site today came into a very different place to the one they left in March.

Project manager Andrew Jarratt said:

Our construction offices have changed to support Covid-19 working arrangements with walkways and signage installed. The canteen facilities have been set out to maintain 2 metre distance, and we have added auto release door stops to minimise requirements to open doors.

On the site one-way systems have been installed to permit offices and through to the building. The permit office has been provided with screens and there are wash stations as you enter and exit the construction site. In the offices, we’ve identified which desks can be used and meeting rooms reworked to provide separation, with maximum capacities noted.

Those on-site this week will be setting up the site for work and the careful powering up of computer systems, which have been off throughout lockdown.

Dame Elizabeth Gloster wrote to the Financial Conduct Authority on 15 May 2020 advising that it would not be possible for her to complete her investigation by the target date of 10 July 2020. Her letter sets out the reasons for the delay and proposes a revised target date for completion of 30 September 2020.

Charles Randell, Chair of the FCA, replied on 26 May confirming that the FCA has no objection to the proposed extension and will continue to work with Dame Elizabeth to deliver to this timescale.

Charles Randell and Dame Elizabeth also wrote to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, John Glen MP on this subject on 27 May and 1 June respectively.

The Economic Secretary responded to Dame Elizabeth’s letter on 10 June 2020.