Bolton misses out on £16m levelling-up grant after email mishap

Council blames ‘IT limitations’ for failure to submit necessary documents before deadline

Bolton council has admitted it missed the deadline to apply for a £16m levelling-up grant because of an email mishap.

This year the council was making two separate bids, which had to be submitted by noon on 18 June.

The £4.8bn levelling up fund has been set up by central government for investing in local infrastructure that “improve everyday life across the UK”, such as town centre regeneration and better public transport.

While Bolton council’s first £20m bid for a new medical college was submitted successfully, its second £16m bid for the renovation of a town centre development was not because it failed to send all the necessary documents before the deadline, Manchester Evening News reported.

“Both bids involved collating many separate documents and third-party letters of support and unfortunately we did not receive all necessary signed documents until that morning [on 18 June],” said Gerry Brough, one of the officials responsible for the application, during a council meeting on Monday.

“At the point of submission, it became apparent that file size limitations on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government server meant that both bids had to be broken down into four separate parts so they could be attached to four separate emails,” he added. This led to the second bid being submitted after the deadline.

Brough stressed that there was no guarantee that the town centre bid would have been accepted, had it been correctly submitted before the deadline.

The council said it was not told the missed deadline was the reason why the bid had failed until October, when central government informed it that the application was rejected.

Nic Peel, the council opposition Labour leader, called the situation “a very costly mess”.

The £16m would have been put toward a £250m redevelopment project in Crompton Place, which was granted planning permission last year. The project includes the demolition of the current shopping centre and the building of a new one.

The council has been approached for comment.

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Weronika Strzyżyńska

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