Portion of cash for ‘food valley’

A £20m payment to Lincolnshire County Council for considering devolution would include £2m to the UK Food Valley Programme.

Lincolnshire County Council has ran a consultation on whether to have an ‘elected mayor’ as part of another layer of local government.
But it needs to decide what a first £2m payment to it will go towards.
A total of £2m is being proposed for the UK Food Valley.
Documents submitted to the county council’s economy committee state: “Whilst the programme will be driven by demand from business and from further/higher education providers, it is likely that investment will be strongest (but not exclusively so) in the Boston and South Holland area which is where the food manufacturing sector is strongest – and where the support infrastructure for the sector is also strong through the National Centre for Food Manufacture and the Centre for Food and Fresh Produce Logistics (at Holbeach).”
It says: “The UK Food Valley Grant Programme will support our important food manufacturing sector.
“This programme will be administered by Greater Lincolnshire LEP, and it is concerned with providing grants which will raise skill levels and productivity within the food manufacturing sector.”
Assistant director for growth at Lincolnshire County Council Justin Brown told the committee: “They’re projects all about putting investment into food technology and further education establishments to help our food businesses to be as productive as possible.”
None of the other projects proposed to benefit form the money are in South Holland.
They include £9m to improve the roads around Old Roman Bank in Sandilands, £3.3m for improvements to the A46 in Lincoln, £2.2m for the Sleaford Moor Enterprise Park, £2m to the Grantham Streetworks Programme and £1.5m for flood prevention schemes in Market Rasen and Kirby on Bain.
“We intend to submit business plans after the executive makes its decision,” Mr Brown said.
“Assuming the decision it takes is that we should do so, we would hope to hear back from government within six weeks and it’s about focussing on that tight timeframe.”
The money has to be spent on capital projects and does not indicate how it will be spent moving forward.
Council leader Martin Hill called this £20m payment as ‘a reward for entering the consultation process’.
“People should remember if it does go through we’ll get more every few years,” he said.”