Thank you to everyone who joined us on January 23rd for the insightful webinar with Turley on, “Government Funding for Regeneration – Is it a prize worth winning?”

Town Centre repurposing and regeneration schemes are increasingly dependent on funding to bridge the viability gap, or to facilitate enabling development to kickstart these complex sites. Securing government funding can be the determinant as to whether regeneration can come forward.  Securing funding is one milestone, but the key question many authorities are grappling with is how to plan development to meet funding criteria and spend the funds that have been allocated.

Following our comprehensive discussion, we are firmly convinced that winning government funding is indeed a valuable prize. To bolster this perspective, we’ve distilled some key takeaways from said discussion:

• The role of funding in securing regeneration
  • In many places, funding is ESSENTIAL and is the key to unlocking the problem.
  • Utilisation deadlines have created a race against time causing compromises on procurement, output quality and decision making.
  • Before your bid: establish your vision and plan, assemble your delivery team and be “oven ready”. This will allow you to maximise on time available and the quality of outputs while also facilitating better decision-making.
  • Communication and collaboration are KEY.
• Process and how to prepare a successful bid
  • Deliver SMART objectives
  • Be pragmatic
  • Be proportionate
  • Keep a record
  • Involve other people/workshops
  • Support selection with data/evidence
  • Avoid retrofitting
• Case Studies – Experience from local authorities and developer partners on the bid process, post-funding success, challenges faced and lessons learnt
  • Southport Town Deal
    • Match Funding/Skin in the Game – Maximise scale of opportunity and impact.
    • Catalyst for private sector investment – Aim to stimulate interest in adjacent sites.
    • “Shovel readiness”, or thereabouts – Projects at BID stage are far beyond concept.
    • Consensus – “A bid with the whole town behind it” a proactive approach.
    • Context – Clear and coherent strategy.
    • Continuity – Consistent and ongoing dialogue.
  • Bedford College, Corby Town Centre
    • Unified Concept – The Research, Raising a Town and Inward Investment.
    • Focused on a local impact – reinvesting into the community.
    • Keen focus on sustainability and building for young adults.
    • Diversification of uses within Town Centres remains of paramount importance to attract a wider audience and increase footfall and consumer spending.

We would like to extend a special thank you to our distinguished speakers for sharing their initiatives, projects and experiences with Revo:

• David Lewis, Executive Director, RivingtonHark
• Bindu Pokkyarath, Director, Business Cases and Funding, Turley
• Stephen Watson, Executive Director (Place), Sefton MBC
• Atul Joshi, Associate Director, Lambert Smith Hampton
• Patricia Jones, Deputy Chief Executive, The Bedford College Group

And to our esteemed member Cat White, Director of Planning at Turley and the entire team at Turley for their exceptional curation and hosting

Revo members can now access the recording on RevoComms!