COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

Some councillors feared the funding will be spent on employing people who don't deliver results



Three areas of Coventry will each receive up to £20m over 10 years to spend on a major transformation to make residents' lives better.

The cash is coming from the Government's Pride in Place Programme, led by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and designed to help disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

The areas of Coventry to get the funding are Willenhall, Hillfields, and Tile Hill. The aim is to use it for local needs such as regeneration, high streets and heritage, housing, work and skills, cohesion, community power, health and wellbeing, transport, safety and security, and education.

The community-led scheme will see priorities set by neighbourhood boards, while the city council acts as an accountable body for public funds and compliance.

A meeting of Coventry City Council's Cabinet heard that a neighbourhood plan for Willenhall needed to be submitted by the end of November, while similar plans for the other two areas must be handed in by March 2027.

Cllr Mattie Heaven (Cons, Wainbody) said she wanted to the council to make sure "we don't create just jobs and salaries for individuals and then we don't see the results."

She said: "Sometimes in cases like this there's a lot of people managing and creating roles, and already the money will be invested. Then if you look after 10 years, we are just employing people and actually not delivering it. That's my biggest concern."

Cllr Heaven added: "We don't want this to be like the City of Culture, where a lot of people came in, got employment, but didn't really deliver."