Great Yarmouth Labour Working for Great Yarmouth
Councillors in Great Yarmouth have taken the final step towards seeking £20m of government funds to spruce up the town’s North Quay area – but a row broke out over how effective the money will be.
The borough council agreed at a meeting on Thursday, July 21 to invest £2.2m of its own funding as part of its bid for £20m from the government’s ‘levelling up’ pot of money.
Some £3m of the money requested would be spent on upgrading the railway station, “to provide a real sense of arrival” the council says and to improve wayfinding to the town centre.
The remaining £17m would be spent, along with the council’s own £2.2m, on regenerating the town’s North Quay area into “a vibrant new mixed-use waterfront quarter”.
At the Thursday meeting, the council’s Labour opposition leader Trevor Wainwright said that while the funding would be welcome, it would pale in comparison to the overall cuts councils have experienced over the last decade.
Mr Wainwright said: “If this comes to fruition, we’ve got another eight to ten years [before the projects are completed] basically, by which time the people that we all represent will suffer huge hardships.
“For instance, food bank use in this borough has gone up 85pc since March. What an indictment of the government.”
He also warned that South West Norfolk MP Liz Truss, the potential prime minister from September, is promising £30bn of tax cuts – and he said this could spell the end of the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda.