'It’s local communities who know what is best for their area'

MS for North Wales

The announcement that North Wales will receive £126 million from the UK Government over the next three years from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund is fantastic news for the people of North Wales.

I am particularly pleased to see that Wrexham, which is on the shortlist of four, to become the UK’s City of Culture 2025, the first Welsh City in Wales, to reach this final, is to receive a total of £22million.

This much needed help will support the UK Government’s wider commitment to level up all parts of the UK in four vitally important areas.

Firstly, boosting productivity, pay, jobs and living standards, secondly, spreading opportunities and improving public services, thirdly, restoring a sense of community, local pride and belonging, fourthly, empowering our local leaders and communities.

This innovative new approach will slash bureaucracy and give control to locally elected leaders, whilst spreading important opportunities and reversing Wales’ geographical inequalities.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund will see financial plans delivering on the needs of local people, from the regeneration of rundown high streets, fighting anti-social behaviour and crime, and helping more people into decent jobs. This will revive our communities, tackle economic decline and narrow the North and South divide that exists in Wales.

Local leaders, partners and people will now be able to directly influence this fund through localised investment plans, resulting in a significant shift in responsibility compared with the previous European structural funds. This fund will be more locally led, freeing our communities from the bureaucratic, rigid and complex processes that came from the European structural funds.

It’s local communities who know what is best for their area, not Cardiff Bay or Westminster, and that’s exactly what this fund delivers on, boosting spending per head in North Wales by £180, and returning power to local people and communities.

Please feel free to contact me by emailing sam.rowlands@senedd.wales or calling on 0300 200 7267.