Portas Pilot Town Funds Being ‘Wasted’

Freedom of Information requests seen by The Independent show that only 12% of the money has been spent, with places such as Croydon only spending £4,950 of its £100,000 grant.

And some industry figures have said the money which has been spent has been wasted on things such as a £1,600 Peppa Pig costume and £1,000 on postage.

Paul Turner-Mitchell, director of the Rochdale-based 25 Ten Boutique, said, “It’s disappointing that, given this unique opportunity to try something different, many councils have wasted funding on the usual bureaucracy of meetings, expense claims and consultants.

“The high street needs urgent support so why is so much of this money still sitting in local authority bank accounts?”

The Government also gave some towns additional money on top of the Portas Pilot fund, meaning £2.4 million has been shared out in total.

The Town Team in Stockport received £362,000 to breathe life back into its high street on top of the £100,000 generated by the Portas Pilot scheme, but has only spent £25,800 so far.

John O’Mara, chairman of the Stockport Town Team, commented, “We’ve spent time putting our enthusiastic, committed Town Team in place, which has now spent more than £25,000 on worthwhile projects.

“This is a pilot – it’s about new ways of working. What’s important is getting this right, not how quickly we get the money out of the door. These things don’t happen overnight.”

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government added, “The Government has given the Portas Pilots a share of £2.4 million to spend as and when they see fit to best improve their high streets and encourage residents to shop locally. But the main aim of this scheme has been to harness the energy of local people to breathe new life into the town centres and make them the hearts of their communities again, and Pilots up and down the country are already doing this very successfully.”