John Pugh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Pugh on 2015-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which coastal resorts have received support in more than (a) one round and (b) two rounds of coastal communities funding awards.

Penny Mordaunt

The Coastal Communities Fund has had three bidding rounds to date. A table has been placed in the Library of the House giving details of 164 coastal communities across the UK that have received grants from the Fund in one, two or three bidding rounds. The table covers all grants awarded in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to date.

In addition to the coastal communities in the table, 22 grants were awarded to projects in local authority areas, and a further five grants awarded to cross local authority projects including two long distance coastal footpaths, where we do not have details of the individual coastal communities they will help.

Ministers are not involved in the grant application or assessment process. The Big Lottery Fund is responsible for inviting and assessing applications to the Fund and makes recommendations to Ministers on which projects should be supported.

The Coastal Communities Fund is currently closed for further applications. No decisions have been taken yet on whether there will be further bidding rounds. This will be a matter for the next Spending Review. However, I hope there will be further opportunities to support local schemes which have not benefitted from Government support to date.