Wigan Council fails to secure £11 million for Leigh with unpopular bid

Wigan Council's £11.4million Levelling Up bid consisted of landscaping the town square, updating Leigh Market and a shop front grant scheme. It was submitted earlier this year but failed to meet the requirements set out by the government.

Questions have been raised over the exclusion of public feedback from the bid, why the bid only totalled only half the £20 million available, and the lack of transparency surrounding the process.

This is the second failed Levelling Up bid submitted by Wigan Council despite dozens of successful bids by local authorities all over the North West. Places such as Burnley, Bolton, Bury, Manchester, and Salford have secured £100s of millions last year.

Wigan Council did manage to secure the full £20 million available for Haigh Hall in Wigan and have pledged to add additional funding to bring the total investment up to £30 million.

We are very disappointed at the outcome, especially given the amount of time and money invested by local businesses and professionals over the last 18 months. Working with the council, we put a transformative bid together for the full £20 million, based on public consultation with an 80% positive approval. Only for it to be replaced two weeks before the submission deadline with an alternate £11 million maintenance bid.

This is a big set-back for the people of Leigh, who are now three years into the levelling up scheme and are yet to receive any funding, despite being classified a priority 1 town.

Our town desperately needs a genuine bid, for the full £20 million, designed to kick-start the regeneration of the town centre in a meaningful way and time is running out.

We would like Wigan Council to listen to the voices of the residents and businesses in Leigh and commit to working with Leigh Means Business to produce a bid based on input from the local community and feedback received from the public consultation already carried out.

We want what’s best for our town and we are eager to see the full £20 million spent on projects that will give Leigh the best possible future.