Dispatch district MP backing Nottingham's bid for £40 million slice of Government's levelling up fund

The city has put forward a bid for the Levelling Up Fund, set up by the Government to fund major regional infrastructure projects that can make a real difference to local communities by creating jobs and opportunities for people and businesses.

Nottingham has submitted a bid for two major projects – asking for £20m towards the next phase of preparing the Broad Marsh shopping centre site for complete redevelopment, along with £20m towards the ongoing development of The Island Quarter.

Both are among the largest city centre regeneration sites in the UK, presenting huge opportunities for major investment, new jobs and fresh ways to boost the local economy.

The council has also submitted a bid for a further £18m from the fund for citywide transport improvements.

Mr Norris (Lab), the city’s two other MPs, Nadia Whitmore (Lab) and Lillian Greenwood (Lab), Mansfield MP Ben Bradley (Con), leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, Coun Milan Radulovic (Lab), leader of Broxtowe Borough Council and senior bosses at Experian, Boots, BioCity, East Midlands Chamber, the Local Enterprise Partnership, Nottingham University, Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham College, among others, have all joined the city council leader Coun David Mellen (Lab) and chief executive Mel Barrett, in signing a letter to Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing, and his ministers, urging them to support the bid.

In it, they set out the compelling reasons for both bids to receive Government backing. On Broad Marsh, they outline how the site presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvent and reimagine the city post-pandemic and the widespread support for its redevelopment, with expert input from designer Thomas Heatherwick and the Broad Marsh advisory group. They explain how transforming Broad Marsh will unlock jobs and investment and allow the city to flourish while also contributing towards Nottingham’s goal to become a carbon neutral city by 2028.

Additional public funding such as the Levelling Up money would help to complete the work already underway on site and act as catalyst to secure private investment to help fully realise the huge potential and opportunity of Broad Marsh, the letter says.

It points out that The Island Quarter is another major Nottingham development, with over two million square feet of mixed use development planned on the edge of the city centre, set to extend the central business district and create up to 4,000 jobs, which deserves the Government’s financial support.

Coun Mellen, said: “The signatories of this letter, and many more people in our city, can clearly see that both Broad Marsh and The Island Quarter represent opportunities to deliver what the Levelling Up Fund sets out to achieve - supporting investment in infrastructure that can make a real difference to local communities.

“Our region has seen the lowest level of public investment of any region in the UK and so we hope the Government agrees that our ambitions for Broad Marsh and The Island Quarter embody what Levelling Up is all about.”