Levelling Up fund earmarks £90m for London boroughs – is your neighbourhood included?
Over £90m will be injected into various boroughs across London to revamp tube stations and improve community spaces as part of the government’s Levelling Up fund.
This morning the department for levelling up, housing and communities quietly posted a raft of new developments set to take place across the likes of Hackney, Camden and Dagenham.
Almost £8m will be spent in Camden to jazz up its Talacre Community Sports Centre and improve road safety for the likes of cyclists.
Alongside this, funds will also be used to redevelop the local 2 Prince of Wales Road building into co-working space for nearby residents.
Moving more central, Hackney is also set to receive £19m to regenerate its town centre.
Levelling Up funding will also be used to bring empty spaces and shops back into use and support the local market, increasing footfall.
East-London hotspot Dagenham will also be handed £10.8m to develop the land on Dagenham Heathway to make it more suitable to build housing.
The government said today the future development will “repurpose a failing shopping centre, remediate land, with poor-quality housing removed for better, more affordable homes”.
A further £43m will be spent upgrading tube stations in Collindale and Waltham Forest.
Seb Dance, London deputy mayor for Transport, said: “Levelling Up funding will contribute to transforming Colindale and Leyton Underground stations to make these stations accessible to all Londoners, while supporting the regeneration of the surrounding town centres.”
Secretary of state Michael Gove’s Levelling Up scheme was launched five years ago to reduce imbalances between regions and social groups. It has received over £48bn in government funding.
The scheme has been widely criticised, former Labour minister Sir Chris Bryant previously described it as “completely corrupt” in a reaction to how a round of funding would be spent last year.
Today’s funding comes ahead of an upcoming election for a new Mayor of London in May, and a general election for a new government later this year.