For too long beautiful rural areas like ours have come second best when it comes to Government investment and Local Authority funding.
I am delighted that in January this year, Rutland and Melton's £23 million Levelling Up Bid was successful! This is a once in a generation amount of money to shape the future of our communities. This funding will:
- Transform Melton Livestock Market into 'the Borough Market of the Midlands' driving tourism and footfall to our town.
- Establish a national Medi-Tech innovation hub, bringing lots of clinicians to our communities and giving us first access to the new medical technologies of the future.
- Create a demand responsive transport bus system between key rural villages between our towns.
- Revamp our tourism offer in Rutland.
- Refurbish and upgrade SMB's Theatre in Melton, improving our night time economy.
I am continuing to push the Government to ensure funding reflects that delivering services in rural areas is more expensive, and that we get all the support and opportunity we need here in Rutland and Melton.
I recently published a new report with UK Onward calling for the Government to incorporate social mobility into Local Government funding formulas. Our report presents further evidence of the historic underfunding in our communities, the detrimental effect this has on our children growing up in areas of poor social mobility, and a clear funding proposal to resolve this. I will continue to do all I can to lobby the Government to incorporate this proposal into their funding formulas, and secure the fair deal we deserve.
I’m fighting to bring fairness back to Government funding and opportunity to the East Midlands to make sure here in Rutland and Melton we get all the support we need, so we can:
- End unfair funding formulas,
- Improve our job market for our local community,
- Improve decent quality broadband locally,
- Feel safe benefiting from policing that doesn’t forget our villages,
- Improve job opportunities with a freeport,
- Support for our famers including flood provision,
- Protect our environment,
- Provide exceptional social care to our older generations,
- Ensure schools give our children the best chance in life, and
- That we have roads that get us safely to work and back home again to our families.
