New Mayor Bev Craig announces £20m fund to ‘revitalise’ Greater Manchester high streets

The new Mayor of Greater Manchester has unveiled plans to ‘breathe new life’ into local high streets with a landmark £20 million fund.

Bev Craig says Greater Manchester has enjoyed a decade of rapid economic growth, ‘outstripping’ every other city region in the UK in the process, but now she wants to make sure that everyone can ‘see and feel’ the benefits of that growth where they live.  

The new £20m Good Growth High Streets Fund will be made available to local businesses, business groups, and voluntary and community organisations across Greater Manchester to improve their high streets, and will primarily back ideas that can ‘make a real difference’ to good economic growth and restore local pride. 

The new fund forms part of the Our High Streets campaign – which will run throughout her first mayoral term to ’empower’ local communities to revitalise where they live, shop, and socialise.  

To drive forward this work, Bev is calling on local businesses and groups to join a new High Streets Taskforce, which will help design the ‘ambitious’ plans for the fund and put them into practice across the city region. 

Bev launched her high street plans in Middleton yesterday, where she said the ‘passion and ambition’ of local people and the independent business community are already leading to a transformation of the town centre, and there’s potential of even more to come.  

“Our high streets are the beating hearts of our communities, and people want to feel pride about where they live,” commented Mayor Bev Craig.

“They are rightly worried and frustrated when they see derelict pubs, boarded-up shops, and dodgy operators, and independent traders moving away. They want to see practical support for local businesses now and that’s why I’m taking action.

Read more:

• ‘I will fight for a better life for all’ – Bev Craig’s speech in full as she’s named the new Mayor of Greater Manchester
• New Mayor Bev Craig announces FREE bus travel for 11 to 16-year-olds in Greater Manchester
• Government allocates funding to ‘breathe life’ into Greater Manchester’s empty high streets

“Our new £20 million Good Growth High Streets Fund is all about restoring pride in a vibrant high street, backing our neighbourhoods, and spreading the rewards of good economic growth everywhere.”

The Good Growth High Streets Fund will open for applications later this year.

Featured Image – GMCA