Growing Places

BRIEFING NOTE ON THE GROWING PLACES FUND

On 4th November 2011 confirmation was received that the Cheshire and Warrington LEP has been provisionally awarded an indicative allocation of £8,751,074 from the national Growing Places Fund (GPF) of £500m. The Fund will be jointly administered by CLG and DfT, but with the funding allocations being issued by CLG.

The Fund has three overriding objectives:

• To generate economic activity in the short term by addressing immediate infrastructure and site constraints and promote the delivery of jobs and housing
• To allow LEPs to prioritise the infrastructure they need, empowering them to deliver their economic strategies
• To establish sustainable revolving funds so that funding can be reinvested to unlock further development and leverage private sector funding.

The Fund will have the following key features:

• The funding will be issued under “Section 31” powers and can only be paid to a local authority. LEPs will therefore need to be appoint a local authority as the accountable body and to act as fund manager. The accountable authority will have to ensure that the funds are allocated and spent in accordance with local government accounting procedures and take into account any state aid issues.
• The Fund will be unringfenced but with the condition that it is spent on capital projects. However, up to 2% is set aside as resource funding to help partnerships manage the funds
• The GPF will be allocated by formula based on population and employment earnings.

Accessing the Fund
Although this is not a competition, partnerships need to demonstrate that they can meet certain criteria, including:

• They are committed to using the GPF to generate economic activity in the short term by addressing immediate infrastructure and site constraints which promote the delivery of jobs and housing.
• They have appropriate governance arrangements in place which will secure value for money in use of the fund.
• They have appropriate arrangements in place to deliver transparency in the use of the fund.
• Partnerships are required to submit a Pre Qualification Questionnaire by 20 December.

Future Funding
There are no current plans for additional funding, but should any future funding become available then it is likely to be distributed on the performance and delivery achieved with the initial allocations.

Next Steps
It is proposed to establish a Cheshire and Warrington GPF Group. It is envisaged that the group will be chaired by Louise Morrissey, LEP lead for “Infrastructure and Connectivity” as Chair and reports to the LEP board.

Eligibility Criteria

Government has not issued any eligibility criteria; it will be for local partnerships to determine their own operating arrangements.
The “Place Teams” (covering Ellesmere Port, Chester, Weaver Valley, Warrington, and Crewe) have been invited to submit projects that meet the following criteria but suitable projects outside these locations will be considered

• Capital infrastructure projects to facilitate construction projects that will deliver employment floorspace or residential development
• The project should be financially viable but demonstrate the need for public sector support
• The GPF investment should be repayable from the revenue or capital receipts associated with the project and the applicant will need to demonstrate how this will be achieved
• The project must demonstrate value for money in the unit cost of outputs
• The applicant must demonstrate the project is deliverable, with particular reference to site ownership, planning consents, availability of development finance, financial standing od the applicant, speed in delivering the agreed outputs
• The applicant will have to demonstrate compliance with State Aid regulations
• The applicant will have to demonstrate the private sector funding that will be levered in by the GPF award
• The applicant will have to demonstrate how the project aligns with LEP’s development and infrastructure priorities
• The applicant will have to demonstrate if other public sector funding can be levered in to the project.

Further information
For further information contact Aidan Manley, Director, Cheshire and Warrington LEP
Aidan.manley@candwlep.co.uk