Scottish Secretary Alister Jack has encouraged East and South Ayrshire Councils to have another shot at levelling up funds
South Ayrshire missed out on £20m funding for leisure and regeneration plans, including the refurbishment of the Citadel and other town centre works.
And while East Ayrshire Council was successful with its bid for Kilmarnock's cultural quarter project, a second bid for improvements to the Bellfield Interchange was not.
During a visit to the Palace Theatre to announce the funding, Mr Jack told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he actively encouraged both authorities to 'fine tune' their bids and return for the third round of the levelling up scheme.
He said: "There is another round coming, so they should look at their bid and fine tune it.
"I would absolutely encourage them to do that as I would with any local authorities who missed out today.
"A number of those who were successful today, missed out in round one, so absolutely, come back again."
Mr Jack spoke positively about the ambitious plans for Kilmarnock.
He said: "It is a very exciting initiative, with £20m going in from the UK Government, with £10m in match funding.
"It is a great bid."
South Ayrshire Council Leader Martin Dowey said the council would be looking at the reasons for the unsuccessful bid, but insisted that the council was still looking at regeneration without that resource.
He said: “We are disappointed not to receive anything from the levelling up fund round two, and we await the reasons behind the decisions.
"In the meantime, we are set to announce some major regeneration and community focused projects following the setting of the Council budget in March.”
East Ayrshire Council pointed out that a lot of work has been carried out on the plans for the Bellfield Interchange, but that they would have to look at the feasibility of plans without levelling up support.
A spokesperson said: "The Bellfield Interchange was included in the application process as it was recognised as having significant capacity and safety challenges that need to be addressed to support strategic development and investment locally.
"The Ayrshire Roads Alliance developed options for improvements to journey times, allowing for increased capacity and delivering safety improvements.
"This included introducing traffic lights, removing hard verges to increase the road width to introduce a third lane and constructing a separate pedestrian/ cycle bridge to support connectivity between Kilmarnock and Hurlford.
"Significant work has already been carried out on the improvement plans for the Bellfield Interchange as part of the application process and these plans will now need be further assessed by the council for feasibility and affordability."
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