News & views

25 January 2023

Chair of Leicestershire Business Voice, Robin Pointon, shares his thoughts on the most recent funding awarded to Leicestershire.

Well you had to look hard. Only one of the seven bids submitted for Leicester and Leicestershire received funding. So firstly ‘well done’ to Melton and Rutland on being awarded £23 million.

What about the rest of Leicestershire and our city? On average, the £2.1 billion UK fund represented an average of £40 per head of population across UK. Not the biggest pot but if the allocation had been based per head, then around £14 million of funding would have come to Leicester, plus more for the districts and boroughs of Leicestershire. Why weren’t we more successful? No one is quite sure. We’re not alone. There is frustration across the country on what is a not fit for purpose approach to areas spending lots of taxpayers money to make bids, only to find that most of them are not successful.

At LBV we want Leicester and Leicestershire to be a great place to do business. We will continue to lend our weight and assist authorities with bids that have this outcome. We invite even more local companies to raise their voice and join with us in this mission.