Levelling Up Secretary visits future Mansfield Connect hub following successful funding bid

The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ visit follows confirmation that Mansfield Council had been successful in its bid to the Government’s Levelling Up Fund for £20m to regenerate the former Beales site.

The funding will see the former town centre department store transformed into Mansfield Connect, a multi-agency hub housing Mansfield Council and key partners, such as Nottinghamshire Council, to become a one-stop shop for residents to access key services.

The scheme forms part of the district council’s town centre regeneration plans, and it is hoped the repurposing of the building will have a knock-on effect, stimulating the local economy and encouraging private-sector investment into the district.

Mr Gove said: "Levelling Up means giving a town like Mansfield, which has a great heritage and a town in which its residents take enormous pride, a vote of confidence from central Government. It’s giving it the extra cash required in order to attract high-paying jobs.

“One of the challenges we have in this country is that in the past, Governments have tended to put their investment in London and the South East. We want to ensure the East Midlands plays its full part in the economic life of the country.

“This visit confirms the £20m we're spending will help transform this site and give the town centre that hub it needs. New jobs, new investment from the public and private sector.”

Andy Abrahams, Mansfield mayor, who welcomed Mr Gove to the town, alongside Coun Ben Bradley, Mansfield MP and Nottinghamshire Council leader, said: “The visit gave us the opportunity to highlight our vision and aspirations for the heart of our town centre in Mansfield, as well as the economic challenges we face too.

“We are unable to bring about regeneration change alone. We need funding, support and partnerships to make the very most of the opportunities afforded to us through initiatives such as the Towns Fund and Levelling Up Fund to help further encourage inward private investment to Mansfield.

“It’s important a Secretary of State comes to Mansfield to show the importance of this project and give it that impetus and get the emphasis on the message of ‘give us the money so we can get on with the project’, because with construction and inflation going through the roof, every month delay means we get less and less for our money.

“I think we got that message across strongly.”

Coun Bradley, said: “I asked in Prime Minister’s questions for Government to help us to accelerate and improve our outcomes of projects in the pipeline.

“We want to see the visible outcomes of those and Michael came to talk to us about our Levelling Up partnership in particular, which is the latest of funding we’ve secured, and how we can be really meaningful with that, so it was a good conversation.

"We also took him around Beales as that’s the physical bit that we want to see come to life, a public service delivery, and improve footfall in town.”