Mansfield MP hails start of planning for town's £50 million future

Hopefully you remember that during 2019 we made some great progress by securing both a town deal of up to £25 million that is ringfenced for our district, and also the chance to grab another £25 million specifically for the town centre as part of the future high streets fund.

This is a once in a generation opportunity for us to do something that really makes a difference, which means that it’s absolutely vital we get it right.

The board will meet over the coming months and includes officials from both Mansfield District and the County Council, as well as representation from the Local Enterprise Partnership (D2N2), West Nottinghamshire College and Nottingham Trent University, the 2020 Business Group and all sorts of other partners, as well as myself.

Our role is to ensure that by the end of the summer we have a firm plan for this cash to submit to the Government and secure this money.

Then I need to make sure that I’m putting pressure on officials and ministers down in Westminster.

If we get our plan right (and play our cards right) we could be setting off with approval to get spending this £50 million before the year is out.

Of course, we could spend that money a hundred times over, in truth but £50 million is enough for us to make a start and sew the seeds of regeneration.

We can’t do everything with it, which means that the real challenge for this board is to take those big themes and priorities and turn them in to practical projects that can be the start of major change.

I’ve had my say over recent months and laid out some proposals in the meeting last week for the board to consider.

But you should have your say too.

At the end of the day the most important thing for me is that people across Mansfield feel valued and feel the benefit of this project and we have to ensure that residents can contribute and buy in to how we spend it.

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Ben Bradley is MP for Mansfield and Warsop.