Communities Secretary John Denham has today announced a series of grants under the Seaside Towns initiative. Wirral has been allocated £0.8 million and I understand that Hoylake is to receive a £200,000 share of that.
[Update 1]: This official (pdf) document indicates that only two Wirral locations, Hoylake and New Brighton are covered. The 25 most deprived seaside councils, as measured on the Index of Multiple Deprivation each receive £200,000. One could presume therefore that £400,000 is available for Wirral as a whole, not £800,000.
As further information becomes available I’ll update this post. If anybody knows what the money is going to be spent on please leave a comment.
Just looked at the DCLG press release and it is £200,000 for the whole of the Wirral borough out of £800,000 for the North West as a whole. So the cash is not necessarily coming to Hoylake although Hoylake and New Brighton are cited in the report itself under an ‘indicative’ list of Wirral’s seaside towns!
http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1518756
And it’s specifically to tackle worklessness issues.
It’s interesting… although deprivation and worklessness seems to be a focal point for those involved in coastal regeneration planning and thinking… and by implication funding allocation… Hoylake is unique: relatively affluent, and with loads of commercial potential because of the international sports dimension as well as natural environment and resources.
Yet the reality on the ground doesn’t tally up with that. High retail vacancy and poor retail performance. A local economy completely unprotected from the peaks and troughs that result from occasional international sporting events.
ASB is low, crime and unemployment well below average.
So why exactly is Hoylake specifically mentioned here?
I’m guessing because Hoylake and New Brighton have been identified as the two key areas in the Core Strategy for tourist potential. This may be an indication that local government are succeeding in put Hoylake on the central government funding radar. If so, let’s celebrate that and hope we get as much of it as possible…
delighted to read that we will be getting some funding into this once lovely town (oops am I still allowed to refer to it as that, apparently we a loosing the title!)
It is high time some funding was spent here I would be very interested to hear about the apportionment of the funds, lets try and attract some retail into the village and the sooner the visitors can get a hot drink and snack along our wonderful promenade the better!
does anyone know if the issues will be discussed in public, as a business owner here on Market Street for a few years it has been devasting to witness the decline of Hoylake, we are all fully aware that we have been through a horrendous financial storm however the government are hell bent on distracting commercial sales here and have increased the rates to deter potential investors, it is outragous!