Market Towns

HC Deb 25 March 2004 vol 419 cc1000-1W

Mr. Edward Davey

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what budget(a) was set for 2003–04 and (b) has been allocated for 2004–05 and 2005–06 by each relevant Government Department for the Market Towns Initiative, broken down by English region. [161651]

Alun Michael

White Paper offered funding of £37 million to enable the Regional Development Agencies and the Countryside Agency to support market town regeneration in the regions over a period of three years. £32 million was allocated to the Regional Development Agencies and £5 million to the Countryside Agency. The initiative was not established as a national funding programme with an annual budget, but as a means of enabling regional partnerships to target towns in their region according to selection criteria agreed regionally.

The start of the initiative was delayed in many of the regions due to the Foot and Mouth crisis, with some regions not launching their own initiatives or incurring spend until last year. For this reason data from the Regional Development Agencies on their expenditure is unlikely to be available until the initiative is evaluated.

Information from the Countryside Agency on its spending to date, broken down by region is given in the following table. The total amount is £11.5 million which is more than double the figure promised in the original figure promised in the Rural White Paper.

2001–02
	HQ	North East	North West	Yorkshire and the Number	West Midlands	East Midlands	East of England	South East	South West	Total
Income	-11,500	—	-20,000	—	—	-25,000	—	—	—	-56,500
Staff costs*	765,000	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	765,000
Running costs	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Market towns Initiative including Transport	338,259	122,674	760,836	370,696	436,478	176,805	300,279	202,209	128,435	2,176,671
Transport	2,352	—	41,527	43,425	187,486	17,183	81,645	97,441	113,303	584,362
Market towns Initiative	335,907	122,674	119,309	267,271	248,992	159,622	218,634	104,768	15,132	1,592,309
Sub total	1,091,759	122,674	140,836	310,696	436,478	151,805	300,279	202,209	128,435	2,885,171

2002–03
	HQ	North East	North West	Yorkshire and the Number	West Midlands	East Midlands	East of England	South East	South West	Total
Income	-33,624	—	—	—	—	-76,590	—	—	—	-110,214
Staff costs	172,559	51,044	56,384	97,039	41,025	89,242	45,788	65,566	57,040	675,687
Running costs	19,063	4,212	6,091	10,275	4,624	8,763	5,044	12,792	5,448	76,312
Market towns Initiative including Transport	278,797	203,067	349,977	720,086	677,723	474,475	267,117	328,683	270,220	3,570,139
Transport	-9,187	57,149	118,253	122,150	468,408	83,883	118,411	73,443	69,846	1,102,356
Market towns Initiative	287,978	145,918	231,724	597,936	209,315	390,592	148,706	255,240	200,374	2,467,783
Sub total	436,789	258,323	412,452	827,400	723,372	495,890	317,949	407,041	332,708	4,211,924

2003–04
	HQ	North East	North West	Yorkshire and the Number	West Midlands	East Midlands	East of England	South East	South West	Total
Income	-120,403	—	—	—	-3,979	-22,000	—	—	—	-146,382
Staff costs	596,846	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	596,846
Running costs	21,000	4,200	4,400	10,100	5,600	7,000	3,200	11,500	5,000	72,000
Market towns Initiative including Transport	197,556	792,392	229,304	376,557	673,542	490,321	217,155	282,737	209,408	2,868,966
Transport	0	50,405	87,806	156,287	242,509	419,818	113,191	123,151	54,236	1,247,403
Market towns Initiative	197,556	141,987	141,498	220,270	431,033	70,503	103,964	159,580	155,172	1,621,563
Sub total	694,999	196,592	233,704	386,657	675,163	475,321	220,355	294,231	214,408	3,391,430

Total
	HQ	North East	North West	Yorkshire and the Number	West Midlands	East Midlands	East of England	South East	South West	Total
Income	-165,527	0	-20,000	0	-3,979	-123,590	0	0	0	-313,096
Staff costs	2,159,405	51,044	56,384	97,039	41,025	89,242	45,788	65,566	57,040	2,662,533
Running costs	40,063	8,412	10,491	20,375	10,224	15,763	8,244	24,292	10,448	148,312
Market towns Initiative including Transport	814,606	518,133	740,117	1,407,339	1,787,743	1,141,601	784,551	813,623	608,063	8,615,776
Transport	-6,835	107,554	247,586	321,862	898,403	520,884	313,247	294,035	237,385	2,934,121
Market towns Initiative	975,802	435,173	588,727	1,117,672	901,701	648,923	500,741	563,718	375,678	6,108,135
Sub total	813,361	76,841	167,646	189,892	12,361	86,978	88,978	252,220	5,000	1,051,480
1 The Countryside Agency accounting system has changed since the Initiative started so a breakdown of running costs and salaries is not possible.
2 Funding for transport is included, although it should be noted that this was a separate funding stream. Also, as some schemes were designed to link towns and cannot be attributed to a single town, this information has been excluded
3 Regions town by town expenditure may not add up to the total on the overview page. This is due to inclusion of projects which are funded to benefit all towns in a region, such as regional networks or training.