UK Shared Prosperity Fund

The council submitted its local UKSPF Investment Plan at the beginning of August 2022. The Plan was developed following extensive consultation and engagement with local partners and elected Members to establish how UKSPF funding could be most effectively allocated in our district. A Partnership Group has been set up along with a Member Working Group to make recommendations on suitable projects for our funding. The government approved our Investment Plan in December 2022. In July 2023 the Council’s second year allocation was approved with indicative allocation for 2024/25.

The Investment Plan sets out how funds have been allocated across each of the priorities and 12 identified interventions for the duration of the programme. The Council has decided to focus the majority of our funding on the Communities and Place priority with investment in quality places that people want to live, work and visit.

These allocations are indicative and subject to change during the life of the programme, to ensure a range of impactful projects can be delivered in a flexible way. The projects funded and delivered may not exactly match the interventions and funding allocations set out in the Investment Plan.

A summarised version of the district’s local Investment Plan can be downloaded.

UK Shared Prosperity Fund – Ribble Valley Borough Council

The Councils 2023/24 allocation (£477,610) was confirmed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities in July 2023 following the submission of a Statement of Grant Usage for 2022-23 and a credible plan for the 2022/23 underspend which will be reprofiled in 2023/24.

In March 2023 Policy and Finance Committee agreed to utilise the majority of the Council’s 2023/24 allocation on the following schemes:

• Castle Street Improvements
• Creation of an enhanced website and marketing opportunities
• Improvements to Clitheroe Market

Work in ongoing in respect of these projects

UK Shared Prosperity Fund – Ribble Valley Borough Council

The release of the 2024/25 allocation (£1,251,339) will be dependent on the submission of a Statement of Grant Usage for 2023-24.

Consideration of suitable projects will be ongoing through 2023/24.

UK Shared Prosperity Fund – Ribble Valley Borough Council

The Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF) provides complementary funding to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), targeted specifically at supporting rural businesses and communities in line with the government’s overall goals of Levelling Up and approach to the UKSPF.

Ribble Valley Council submitted its REPF Investment Plan in November 2022. This followed a meeting of the Partnership Group, which has been convened specially in relation to this fund.

The key points on the allocation and availability of funding are as follows:

• The funding covers the period from April 2023-March 2025.
• The funding is entirely designated as ‘capital’ funding, which means it can only be spent on ‘lasting assets such as buildings or equipment’; although wider UKSPF revenue funding may also be used to complement REPF funding where appropriate.
• The funding must be used to deliver business or community projects (i.e. not domestic) within rural areas, defined as:
  • towns, villages and hamlets with populations below 10,000 and the wider countryside
  • market or ‘hub towns’ with populations of up to 30,000 that serve their surrounding rural areas as centres of employment and in providing services

In April 2023 DEFRA confirmed that the Council’s submission to the Rural England Prosperity Fund had been accepted with the following allocations to Ribble Valley

The Council have identified the following rural interventions to focus the funding on:

Supporting Local Businesses Priority

Funding (capital grants) for growing the local social economy and supporting innovation. This includes:

• community businesses
• cooperatives and social enterprises
• research and development sites

Funding (capital grants) for the development and promotion (both trade and consumer) of the visitor economy, such as:

• local attractions
• trails
• tourism products more generally

Community and Place Priority

Funding (capital grants) for investment and support for digital infrastructure for local community facilities.

Funding (capital grants) for investment in capacity building and infrastructure support for local civil society and community groups.

Funding (capital grants) for creation of and improvements to local rural green spaces.

Funding (capital grants) for existing cultural, historic and heritage institutions that make up the local cultural heritage offer.