LGA - Local areas need £8.4 billion of EU funding replaced after Brexit

1 Aug 2017 09:04 AM

Local areas need €10.5 billion (£8.4 billion) of European Union funding replaced as part of a locally-led successor to EU regional aid after Brexit, council leaders have set out in a new report.

Since the EU referendum, the Local Government Association has repeatedly called for a government commitment to replace vital EU regeneration funding. In its manifesto, the Government pledged to create a UK Shared Prosperity Fund to replace the money local areas currently receive from the European Union.

The EU money has been vital to create jobs, support small and medium enterprises, deliver skills, and boost local growth across the country, in all types of areas.

The LGA said any UK successor scheme needs to be of at least equivalent value to the current European Structural Investment Funds (ESIF). In its new report, ‘Beyond Brexit’, it says local areas across the UK had been set to receive a total of €10.5 billion (£8.4 billion) between 2014 and 2020.

Council leaders want to work with government to avoid defaulting to a silo-approach and creating a like-for-like replacement of the current EU programme, which is often bogged down in government bureaucracy and delay.

The LGA said Brexit provides an historic opportunity to give local areas greater say over how to target a new and simplified regional aid fund at local projects of benefit for local people and economies and best support infrastructure, environment, enterprise and social cohesion.

Cllr Kevin Bentley, Chairman of the LGA’s Brexit Task and Finish Group, said:

“Since the referendum, one of the biggest concerns for councils has been the future of vital EU regeneration funding. Councils have used EU funds to help new businesses start up, create thousands of new jobs, roll out broadband and build new roads and bridges.

“Securing a government commitment around this vital regeneration funding has been an important step. To further its devolution commitments, we want to work with the Government to help develop a fully-funded and locally-driven successor scheme with local government in areas of all types.

“Current EU funding is allocated over a seven-year period. This long-term distribution must be maintained to allow for long-term planning. Funding must be easier to access and local areas need full control over how it is spent and what projects it is spent on.

“With national funding for regeneration increasingly being depleted, all local areas have become increasingly reliant on EU money and local areas are desperate to get on with creating jobs, building infrastructure and boosting growth.”

Notes to editors

1. There was a diversity of views among local government about Britain's membership of the EU. To reflect this, the LGA remained neutral during and since the referendum campaign.
2. The LGA’s new report Beyond Brexit: Future of funding currently sourced from the EUpresents an in-depth analysis of a number of options which aim to inform the design and delivery of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.