Gedling Borough Council should find out by the end of the month whether their bid for millions of pounds in Government ‘Levelling Up’ cash was successful.
The council submitted a bids to ministers as they look to drive forward a raft of different projects in the borough.
It’s part of the levelling up initiative first put forward by Boris Johnson’s Government, which aimed to address imbalances between different parts of the UK.
In his autumn statement last month, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt pledged to allocate the cash by the end of the year.
This is the second round of the fund, with successful and unsuccessful bids in the first round confirmed during the November 2021 spending review.
Ministers have provided no specific date for the announcement, meaning councils could find out any day this month whether their plans will happen.
The Future High Streets funding, a separate Government scheme, was announced on Boxing Day 2020.
If Gedling Borough Council win the cash they hope to create a replacement leisure centre and theatre in Arnold, alongside a new library and improved town centre access from Front Street.
The authority missed out on the first round of the Levelling Up Fund,
It led to Cllr Michael Payne (Lab), the council’s deputy leader, describing the news as “disgusting and absolutely shocking”.
In total, more than 65 per cent of the 229 first-round bids submitted by English councils were unsuccessful.
The Government awarded £1.7bn to councils in the first round, and the total value of rejected bids was £2.4bn.
More than 500 bids have been submitted nationwide for the remaining £3.1bn of the £4.8bn fund, with the second round expected to be over-subscribed.
