Kirkby’s town centre revamp and Liverpool’s port are among the beneficiaries of a £150m Covid recovery fund approved by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority today.
The combined authority approved the huge investment proposed by Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram at its annual meeting today and it is hoped it will help an economy that has been battered by the effects of Covid-19.
It was the first meeting since Mr Rotheram was comfortably re-elected for a second term as Metro Mayor last month.
The funding will be used for a slew of projects across our reason, with many more due to be announced in the future.
Speaking after the fund had been approved, Mr Rotheram said he believed it would give our region a “head start” on much of the country in rebuilding after the pandemic.
He said: “Two years ago, I launched a £75m resilience programme to help local businesses deal with the impact of Brexit. It was the largest package of business support the city region had seen in decades. This fund is twice as big.
“It is a massive investment in our future and a huge show of confidence in our region’s ability to come back from the adversity of the past year.
“This is just the start of my ambitions. This money will underpin hundreds of millions of pounds in investments from other funds from transport to skills, to housing.
“I’ve just been given an overwhelming mandate from people in every part of the Liverpool City Region and I’ll be using it to press the Government to invest in our Economic Recovery Plan, which would deliver nearly £9bn of benefit to our region and create over 120,000 jobs.”
The fund will be used across a range of areas such as highways, transport and green-focused recovery projects.
Among the recipients so far are Kirkby town centre’s renovation, which will receive £2.8m, and Liverpool’s “Port Accelerator” project, which will get £750,000.
