Majority of Levelling Up Projects Remain Incomplete Years After Funding Allocation

Most levelling up projects remain unfinished years after funding was allocated, underscoring how ambitious Conservative pledges for rapid progress on regional equality have stalled.

Data obtained through freedom of information requests and reviewed by the Guardian reveals that 821 out of 1,347 levelling up projects had not been finalised as of May this year. Across the UK, 73 council areas with accepted bids have yet to see a single project reach completion. The Guardian has identified 59 projects completed since the data collection period.

Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have experienced slower delivery despite having fewer projects overall. North-west England and Yorkshire also recorded low completion rates, though these regions were allocated the largest number of projects initially.

Boris Johnson’s government came to power in 2019 promising to revitalise neglected towns and spread opportunity through a levelling up agenda led by Michael Gove. With 57% of projects still unfinished, the figures indicate many communities are still waiting for those ambitions to materialise.

The analysis covers three primary funds associated with the levelling up agenda: the Future High Streets Fund (launched in 2018), Town Deals (2019), and the Levelling Up Fund (2021).

The Future High Streets Fund was scheduled for completion by March 2024, while the official deadline for spending Towns Fund and Levelling Up Fund allocations was March 2026. Under Labour, the Levelling Up Fund and Town Deals were consolidated into the Local Regeneration Fund, with a new deadline of March 2028.

Labour has since introduced the Pride in Place programme, which provides longer-term funding with local boards determining expenditure, rather than requiring councils to compete for grants.

Jack Shaw, director of Groundwork Research, which supplied the data, said the findings expose a significant gap between levelling up’s intentions and its delivery. He stated: “Despite significant funding, too many one-off commitments have failed to translate into substantive improvements in communities or local economies.

“The Pride in Place programme is a step forward because it provides communities with £2m a year over 10 years, giving places the certainty and time to deliver visible, lasting improvements.

“But in future the government also needs to look at how investment can reach communities more quickly, so that funding announced at this budget can improve neighbourhoods over the course of this parliament, whether that be through new social infrastructure or a better public realm.”

Blackburn with Darwen council had eight projects funded through the Local Regeneration Fund, none of which have been fully completed.

Similarly, all eight projects funded in Leeds remain incomplete. Five are in Morley: a refurbishment of Morley town hall, the establishment of a learning and skills centre, the station gateway transport scheme, a project to make the area greener and better connected, and the Heritage Investment Programme (which has only been partially completed).

Two projects in Holbeck – a green housing retrofit and a local centre scheme – also remain unfinished, as do the St Matthew’s community centre and Old Box Office project.

Inflation has been a key factor behind delays nationwide, forcing councils to scale back or pause projects as rising costs eroded their awarded budgets.

Zoë Billingham, director of the IPPR North thinktank, said the Conservatives’ Town Fund failed because it created a “begging bowl culture” where councils had to approach Whitehall officials to access centrally controlled funding pots.

She said: “The levelling up – the ‘hanging baskets strategy’ as it was called – was short-term pots of money that could help clean up high streets and make tangible and important improvements. But that’s different to long-term support for what high streets are and should be. No one would dismiss it [levelling up funding], but you have to have a long-term plan rather than pots of money that run out.”

Andy Haldane, former Bank of England chief economist who has advised Burnham, described the levelling up fund as “better than nothing” despite its problems. He said: “It was in some ways the kind of worst of Whitehall. Because all the decisions were centralised. There looked to be degrees of pork barrel politics rolled into which places got it.

“It was all a bit sort of unsightly and pork barrelly.”

The national figures exclude 69 projects that were either cancelled or merged into other existing projects. Some projects are broader funding programmes, parts of which may have been completed.

Sarah Longlands, chief executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, warned that Labour’s Pride in Place programme could encounter similar pitfalls to the Conservatives’ towns fund. She said: “It doesn’t surprise me the [Towns Fund] projects are not finished. Capital money takes time – you just can’t throw stuff up. This is my worry with the current programme of neighbourhood boards. We’re dealing with a lot of capital money, and it can’t be done quickly sometimes.”

You can examine projects in your area and their completion status using the map below. Government data may omit some recent project completions. The Guardian has attempted to correct for this using published online announcements, though some completed projects may still be missing from the data.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We are committed to driving good growth in every postcode, giving local leaders stability through long-term targeted funding.

“That’s why we introduced our £5.8bn Pride in Place programme, giving the power to local people to decide how to invest this money to regenerate their own communities.

“And thanks to our Local Regeneration Fund, we’re seeing more money from previous funding programmes being delivered quicker.”

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