£90 million programme to transform Wales’ towns

Welsh Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government Hannah Blythyn has announced that Wales’ towns are to receive £90 million of additional investment.

As part of a new Welsh Government approach to transforming town centres across the country, the Transforming Towns package includes measures to increase footfall by making sure the public sector locate services in town centre locations, tackle empty buildings and land to help bring them back into use, and greening our town centres.

The Welsh Government unveiling a new ‘Town Centre First’ approach, which means locating services and buildings in town centres wherever possible. As part of this approach, all Welsh Government departments will put the health and vibrancy of town centres as the starting point for their location decision-making processes. The public sector is also being encouraged to support towns by locating offices, facilities and services within them in order to drive footfall and create or sustain vibrancy.

The £90 million investment includes: £36 million for town centre regeneration projects; £13.6 million to tackle empty and dilapidated buildings and land; £2 million for coastal towns to support projects to an anticipated value of £3 million which will contribute to town centre/high street regeneration; £10 million of additional funding for the Town Centre Loans scheme to bring vacant and underutilised buildings back into use in our town centres; and £5 million funding for Green Infrastructure and Biodiversity within town centres.

Blythyn said: “Towns are incredibly important to the people and places of Wales, and they are incredibly important to me personally. We have great towns in Wales – towns with inspiring histories and unique assets. But we want our towns to have great futures as well as great pasts, and we know that some of our towns are facing challenges. The retail sector has shrunk dramatically and this trend looks set to continue. This is why we need to refocus our efforts on town centres, transforming them to be to be fit for the 21st Century. The Transforming Towns package I am announcing today will help towns do just that – giving them a much needed boost.

“As part of this package, we’re taking action to bring empty and derelict properties in our town centres back into use and our Town Centre First Principle will help bring increased footfall and vibrancy. Taken together these measures will make a significant contribution to the health of our town centres. It signals that this government is serious about transforming towns right across Wales.”