Dartford is set to receive an allocation of £1,000,000 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to help level up our communities.
The Council is interested in hearing from local stakeholders about how this allocation should be spent and would welcome any ideas they might have.
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) is a £2.6billion pot of funding which will be distributed to local authorities across the UK to invest in levelling up the country through local interventions. It’s designed as the Government’s domestic replacement for the European Structural and Investment Programme (ESIF) which the UK continues to participate in until 2023. The ESIF programme was essential for local regeneration, employment and skills.
The fund has 3 investment priorities:
Community and place
- Strengthening our social fabric
- Fostering a sense of local pride and belonging
- Building resilient and safe neighbourhoods
Supporting local businesses
- Creating jobs and boosting community cohesion by supporting local businesses
- Promoting networking and collaboration and stimulating innovation and growth
- Targeted support to help businesses growth – for example:
- innovation
- productivity
- energy efficiency
- low carbon
- exporting
People and skills
- Boosting core skills and supporting adults to progress in work
- Supporting disadvantaged people to access the skills they need
- Funding local skills needs and supplementing local adult skills provision
- Reducing level of economic inactivity and supporting those furthest from the labour market
Funding for the first two priorities will commence in 2022/23, while the ‘People and Skills’ priority will commence in 2024/25. The national prospectus encourages lead authorities to work across boundaries and with different levels of local government to agree and commission provision across a wider geography, especially for employment and skills provision.
To support the development of the investment plans, the Council would like to engage with a wide range of local stakeholders from the private, public, community and voluntary sectors to get their input on how the funding should be spent and how they can support delivery in the period from 2022 to 2025.
Stakeholders who want to put forward potential projects and ideas for inclusion in the investment plan can email ukspf@dartford.gov.uk for a form to submit their ideas.
All ideas will be considered however, submission of a project ideas form does not guarantee that a proposal will be included in the investment plan.
Selection must be based on how well a project fits in with the fund's priorities and outcomes and how well they demonstrate deliverability, evidence of need, partnership working and value for money.
The deadline for applications is June 12th.